![]() 168, 190 (1880), noting that Congress does not “possess the general power of making inquiry into the private affairs of the citizen.” Later rulings extended the same principle to inquiries by federal administrative agencies. The Supreme Court’s recognition of a citizen’s right to be secure against unauthorized government intrusion dates at least to a batch of cases in the 1880s, beginning with Kilbourn v. Supreme Court passes without at least one case on the docket that juxtaposes government’s need for information, usually pursuant to law enforcement investigation, and a citizen’s or organization’s wish to withhold that information, or to prevent government from gathering the information by invading premises or conducting surveillance in other forms. Interpreting and applying the spare words of the Fourth Amendment have posed a major and continuing challenge for the courts. Supreme Court declared that state and local governments are as fully bound to respect privacy as is the national government, since the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates or absorbs the basic safeguards of the Fourth and makes those safeguards fully applicable to official action at all levels. Most states have comparable provisions in their own constitutions, and in 1963 the U.S. The Fourth Amendment has for the past 212 years been the bulwark of such privacy protection. Constitution’s framers felt imperative to embody in the Bill of Rights was that of privacy. ![]() ![]() Prominent among the principles that the U.S. From that bold beginning developed a more specific expectation that government may search a person’s house, or personal papers, only with a valid reason (later, “probable cause”), legal authority (eventually in the form of a search warrant), and only after giving adequate notice before seeking entry or access. ![]()
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