Fourth Amendment Commons^™

Facebook, Crime Prevention, And The Scope Of The Private Search Post-Carpenter, Connor M. Correll

Georgia Law Review

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects people “against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The private search doctrine provides a notable exception to the Fourth Amendment, providing that the government may reconstruct a search previously performed by a private party without first obtaining a warrant. The U.S. Supreme Court developed the private search doctrine prior to the advent of the internet; however, modern technology has changed the way that individuals live. What was once done entirely in private is now done alongside ever-present third parties, such as cell phones and virtual assistants.

Facebook and other social media sites complicate Fourth …

Regulatory Constitutional Law: Protecting Immigrant Free Speech Without Relying On The First Amendment, Michael Kagan

Georgia Law Review

The Supreme Court has long deprived immigrants of the full protection of substantive constitutional rights, including the right to free speech, leaving undocumented immigrants exposed to detention and deportation if they earn the government’s ire through political speech. The best remedy for this would be for the Supreme Court to reconsider its approach. This Essay offers an interim alternative borrowed from an analogous problem that arises under the Fourth Amendment. Under the Constitution, the Supreme Court has indicated that illegally obtained evidence may be suppressed in a removal proceeding only if the Fourth Amendment violation was “egregious.” Yet, some circuit …

Suspicionless Policing, Julian A. Cook

Scholarly Works

The tragic death of Elijah McClain—a twenty-three-year-old, slightly built, unarmed African American male who was walking home along a sidewalk when he was accosted by three Aurora, Colorado police officers—epitomizes the problems with policing that have become a prominent topic of national conversation. Embedded within far too many police organizations is a culture that promotes aggressive investigative behaviors and a disregard for individual liberties. Incentivized by a Supreme Court that has, over the course of several decades, empowered the police with expansive powers, law enforcement organizations have often tested—and crossed—the constitutional limits of their investigative authorities. And too often it …

International Impact Of The Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use Of Data (Cloud) Act And Suggested Amendments To Improve Foreign Relations, Jordan A. Klumpp

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Reforming Cash Bail Bonds, Larry Nackerud, Marissa Dodson, Russell C. Gabriel, Katherine Hubbard

Working in the Public Interest Conferences

Many people charged with misdemeanors await trial while in jail because they cannot afford the bonds set by the magistrate guidelines, often for longer than the sentence if they were found guilty. Panelists discuss the historical context of cash bonds and what is currently being done to fight them.

Simon Didn't Say: When Reconstruction Of A Private Search Goes Awry Under The Private Search Doctrine, John G. Chambers

Georgia Law Review

A privateparty conducting an unreasonablesearch of an
individual need not fear the Fourth Amendment as the
proscriptions therein are applicable against only the
government. The government, however, need not fear the
Fourth Amendment where it replicates that private party's
unreasonable search. As such, the Fourth Amendment is
not offended where the government directs the private

party to "reconstruct" its initial search. This
reconstruction doctrine breeds many questions in
application, particularly in the digital context. In
grappling with these questions, this Note demonstrates
that the current law provides no satisfying answers. It
proposes a new test to assess reconstructed private party …

Mass Suppression: Aggregation And The Fourth Amendment, Nirej Sekhon

Georgia Law Review

The FourthAmendment's exclusionary rule requires that
criminal courts suppress evidence obtained as a result of
an unconstitutionalsearch or seizure. The Supreme Court
has repeatedly stated that suppression is purely
regulatory, not remedial. Its only purpose is to deter
future police misconduct, not to remedy past privacy or
liberty harms suffered by the defendant. Exclusion, in
other words, is for the benefit of community members who
might, sometime in the future, be subject to police
misconduct like that endured by the defendant.
Exclusion's regulatory purpose would be greatly aided if
criminal courts could identify when a suppression motion
involved Fourth Amendment …

“Criminal Records” - A Comparative Approach, Sigmund A. Cohn

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Policing In The Era Of Permissiveness: Mitigating Misconduct Through Third-Party Standing, Julian A. Cook

Scholarly Works

On April 4, 2015, Walter L. Scott was driving his vehicle when he was stopped by Officer Michael T. Slager of the North Charleston, South Carolina, police department for a broken taillight. A dash cam video from the officer’s vehicle showed the two men engaged in what appeared to be a rather routine verbal exchange. Sometime after Slager returned to his vehicle, Scott exited his car and ran away from Slager, prompting the officer to pursue him on foot. After he caught up with Scott in a grassy field near a muffler establishment, a scuffle between the men ensued, purportedly …

Redefining The Right To Be Let Alone: Privacy Rights And The Constitutionality Of Technical Surveillance Measures In Germany And The United States, Nicole Jacoby

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

A Cloudy Forecast: Divergence In The Cloud Computing Laws Of The United States, European Union, And China, Tina Cheng

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Clapper V. Amnesty International Usa On The Doctrine Of Fear-Based Standing, Amanda M. Mcdowell

Georgia Law Review

The Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Clapper v. Amnesty International USA dealt with the government's electronic surveillance authority under the Foreign Intelligence SurveillanceAct (FISA) Amendments. In a 5- 4 opinion, the Court held that a variety of U.S. persons, including attorneys and media organizations, did not have standing to challenge the constitutionality of the FISA Amendments because the plaintiffs' fear of future unlawful surveillance was not "certainly impending." Depending on how lower courts choose to interpret Clapper, the decision could have a significant impact on the doctrine of fear-based standing, which allows plaintiffs to establish standing based on fear of …

Genetic Privacy & The Fourth Amendment: Unregulated Surreptitious Dna Harvesting, Albert E. Scherr

Georgia Law Review

Genetic privacy and police practices have come to the
fore in the criminal justice system. Case law and stories
in the media document that police are surreptitiously
harvesting the out-of-body DNA of putative suspects.
Some sources even indicate that surreptitious data
banking may also be in its infancy. Surreptitious
harvesting of out-of-body DNA by the police is currently
unregulated by the Fourth Amendment. The few courts
that have addressed the issue find that the police are free
to harvest DNA abandoned by a putative suspect in a
public place. Little in the nascent surreptitious harvesting
case law suggests that surreptitious …

Bringing An End To Warrantless Cell Phone Searches, Bryan A. Stillwagon

Georgia Law Review

Cell phones keep society connected, and exploring their contents reveals a glimpse into the user's life. As technology develops and these phones advance, this glimpse becomes a more complete picture of the user's life. The Fourth Amendment speaks of a right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, but this right is threatened when judges permit the few exceptions to the warrant requirement to envelop the general rule. This Note begins with a brief review of the history of both cellphones and warrantless searches, followed by the recent history of warrantless cell phone searches. While focusing on the search- …

Monitoring For Quality Assurance: Employer Regulation Of Off-Duty Behavior, James A. Sonne

Georgia Law Review

This Article offers a unique and timely treatment of the dual, yet divergent, rise in employer regulation of off-duty behavior and employee privacy law. Recent trends show that technology has expanded the supervisory tools available to employers and made the workplace a more fluid concept; in addition, financial pressures have grown from expensive employee benefits and other business costs. As a result, employers have been increasingly interested in reaching beyond their office walls to gather pertinent information for making personnel decisions. On the other hand, a movement is building in law to segregate off-duty activity from employer purview, particularly in …

The Online Zoom Lens: Why Internet Street-Level Mapping Technologies Demand Reconsideration Of The Modern-Day Tort Notion Of "Public Privacy", Andrew Lavoie

Georgia Law Review

Internet mapping technologies provide detailed,overhead views of our world and have been in existence for practically a decade. In 2007, however, several private companies expanded the technology and began offering street-level imagery as an extra feature for their online map users. Google, the most notable company to take this step, created "Street View," which allows users to see major cities and metropolitan areas around the world from the still-frame perspective of a car passing by. These images display with considerable clarity, not only skyscrapers, parks, and private homes, but also-and more importantly-vehicles, bicyclists, and people on the streets at the …

Snoop Dogs: An Analysis Of Narcotics Canine Sniffs Of Storage Units Under The Fourth Amendment, Eugene D. Bryant

Georgia Law Review

A recent development in the nation's war on drugs is the increased use of narcotics canines to indiscriminately search storage facilities. Although the Fourth Amendment protects persons from unreasonable searches and seizures, the Supreme Court of the United States in U.S. v. Place deemed a canine sniff to be sui generis and not a "search"subject to analysis under the Fourth Amendment. With its decision in Illinois v. Caballes, the Court extended this analysis to canine sniffs outside of vehicles. Various state courts, in order to better protect the rights of state citizens, have rejected the Supreme Court's sui generis analysis …

Protecting The Inner Environment: What Privacy Regulation Can Learn From Environmental Law, Dennis D. Hirsch

Georgia Law Review

This Article takes insights from the field of environmental law and applies them to the emerging area of privacy regulation. Professor Hirsch begins by showing that the information economy's negative impacts on personal privacy are analogous to the smokestack economy's harmful effects on the environment. He then identifies specific regulatory strategies pioneered in the environmental field and explains how to adapt them for use in protecting privacy

Data Matching, Data Mining, And Due Process, Daniel J. Steinbock

Georgia Law Review

The Article concerns the governmental use of computerized data matching (comparison of records) and data mining (profiling),which increasingly are aimed at locating potential terrorists. The most striking aspect of virtually all anti-terrorist data matching and data mining decisions is the total absence of even the most rudimentary procedures for notice, hearing, or other opportunities for meaningful participation before, or even after, the deprivation is imposed. The Article evaluates under Fourth Amendment and due process standards a variety of law enforcement activities data matching or data mining might instigate. After reviewing these activities' potential effects on private, governmental, and accuracy interests, …

The Fourth Amendment Protection Against Unreasonable Searches And Seizures And The French Experience, Florence Sophie Boreil

LLM Theses and Essays

Under the American approach to criminal justice, freedom of the individual is of the utmost importance. The American criminal justice system reflects a distrust of abuse of power and an emphasis on protection of personal freedom. However, the French take a contrary approach; under French law, freedom is achieved through the State. This paper examines the protection of individuals’ rights in American and French criminal procedure. Focus will be given to tracking the police investigatory powers in each country through searches and seizures, and the impact that those powers have on individuals’ rights. This paper will assert that the police …

Warrantless Searches And Seizures, Mack Allen Player

Scholarly Works

The fourth amendment to the Constitution has two basic clauses. The first, the reasonableness clause, protects the people against unreasonable searches and seizures. The second, the warrant clause, sets forth conditions under which a warrant may issue. Searches and seizures made pursuant to a warrant are, quite obviously, governed by the commands of the warrant clause. However, the effect of the warrant clause upon searches and seizures made without warrants is not clear from the amendment itself, and the Supreme Court has failed to develop a consistent interpretation of the proper role of that clause.

College Searches And Seizures: Privacy And Due Process Problems On Campus, T. J. A.

Georgia Law Review

Elimination of inequities in college search and seizure procedures can assure the student of his fourth amendment rights. To do so, however, will impose concomitant responsibilities which he must be prepared to accept. For example, in criminal proceedings most college students will be categorized as adults. If college administrators must limit their own duties and defer to other governmental agencies for investigation of criminal matters, suspension or expulsion may have less appeal as appropriate punishment for state authorities in possession of criminal evidence. Police officials may be expected to seek more confining penalties. Moreover, the legitimacy of evidence obtained in …

The Georgia Eavesdropping Statute: A Critical Examination In Light Of Berger V. New York, R. W. S., Jr.

Georgia Law Review

Mr. Justice Brandeis, dissenting in Olmstead v. United States,2 observed that: Ways may some day be developed by which the Government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. With the advent of miniaturized circuits and the corresponding subtlety of eavesdropping devices Brandeis' prediction has become a substantial reality. Tubular and parabolic microphones, for example, can intercept conversations held hundreds of yards away and, reportedly, a microwave beam has been developed which can penetrate virtually any obstacle. Wireless …