Daily Archives: April 26, 2014

National Security Agency – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted: April 26, 2014 at 12:27 pm

The National Security Agency (NSA) is a U.S. intelligence agency responsible for providing the United States government with encrypted communications (information assurance) and the reading of encrypted communications (signals intelligence) of other nations. The NSA also creates and maintains secure computer network operations for the U.S. Government and prepares for network warfare.[8]

Originating as a unit to decipher code communications in World War II, it was officially formed as the NSA by President Truman in 1952. Since then, it has become one of the largest of U.S. intelligence organizations in terms of personnel and budget,[6][9] operating under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense and reporting to the Director of National Intelligence.

The NSA is tasked with the global monitoring, collection, decoding, translation and analysis of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, including surveillance of targeted individuals in U.S. territory. The agency is authorized to accomplish its mission through clandestine means,[10] among which are bugging electronic systems[11] and allegedly engaging in sabotage through subversive software.[12][13]

The NSA is also responsible for the protection of U.S. government communications and information systems.[14] As part of the growing practice of mass surveillance in the United States, the NSA collects and stores all phone records of all American citizens.[15]

Unlike the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), both of which specialize primarily in foreign human espionage, the NSA has no authority to conduct human-source intelligence gathering, although it is often portrayed doing so in popular culture. Instead, the NSA is entrusted with coordination and deconfliction of SIGINT components of otherwise non-SIGINT government organizations, which are prevented by law from engaging in such activities without the approval of the NSA via the Defense Secretary.[16]

As part of these streamlining responsibilities, the agency has a co-located organization called the Central Security Service (CSS), which was created to facilitate cooperation between NSA and other U.S. military cryptanalysis components. Additionally, the NSA Director simultaneously serves as the Commander of the United States Cyber Command and as Chief of the Central Security Service.

The NSA has been a matter of political controversy on several occasions in its short history. During the Watergate affair, as a result of A Congressional Inquiry led by Sen. Frank Church [17] it was revealed that the NSA, in collaboration with Britains secret listening post, GCHQ, had routinely intercepted the international communications of prominent anti-Vietnam war leaders such as Jane Fonda and Dr. Benjamin Spock.[18] A multi-year investigation by the European Parliament highlighted the NSA's role in economic espionage in a report entitled 'Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information', in 1999.[19]

However, in 2013, the extent of the NSA's secret surveillance programs was revealed to the public by Edward Snowden. According to the leaked documents, the NSA intercepts phone and internet communications of over a billion people worldwide and tracks the movement of hundreds of millions of people using cellphones. It has also created or maintained security vulnerabilities in most software and encryption (by collaborating with, coercing, or infiltrating numerous technology companies), so that the majority of the internet is susceptible to cyber attacks from the NSA and other parties.

The origins of the National Security Agency can be traced back to April 28, 1917, three weeks after the U.S. Congress declared war on Germany in World War I. A code and cipher decryption unit was established as the Cable and Telegraph Section which was also known as the Cipher Bureau and Military Intelligence Branch, Section 8 (MI-8). It was headquartered in Washington, D.C. and was part of the war effort under the executive branch without direct Congressional authorization. During the course of the war it was relocated in the army's organizational chart several times. On July 5, 1917, Herbert O. Yardley was assigned to head the unit. At that point, the unit consisted of Yardley and two civilian clerks. It absorbed the navy's cryptoanalysis functions in July 1918. World War I ended on November 11, 1918, and MI-8 moved to New York City on May 20, 1919, where it continued intelligence activities as the Code Compilation Company under the direction of Yardley.[20][21]

MI-8 was also called the Black Chamber.[23] Headed by cryptologist Herbert Yardley, the Black Chamber was located on East 37th Street in Manhattan. Its purpose was to crack the communications codes of foreign governments. Jointly supported by the State Department and the War Department, the chamber persuaded Western Union, the largest U.S. telegram company, to allow government officials to monitor private communications passing through the companys wires.[24]

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National Speakers Association New Jersey Chapter NSA

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Home Board of Directors About Us Become a Member Find a Speaker Honorary Members Speaker Resources Member Activities Monthly Meetings Upcoming Events Speaker Opportunitites OnLine Payments Vendor Resources The Spirt of NSA Contact Us

Charles Fleisher is highly experienced speaker, mentor and life coach, having spoken to over 50,000 people during his career.

On October 10, 1988, Charles was the passenger in a vehicle driving at speeds over 100 miles an hour. The ride ended with him being thrown from the vehicle for over 100 feet, resulting in a broken neck and sustaining a paralyzing injury.Charles now devotes his life to sharing the awareness he has received from living with paralysis. He works with audiences and individuals to manage change and capitalize on difficulties.

In his recently released book, The Secret of Difficulties: 4 Steps to Turn Tragedies into Opportunities, Charles profiles individuals who have taken difficult situations and turned them into opportunities they would not have had if they had not had the difficulty in the first place. It provides 4 clear steps to take your own difficult situations and turn them into opportunities to improve your own work, organization, or personal life.

Your Story Blows Me Away: Secrets of Amazing Storytelling for Businesses

Speaker: Dave Leiber

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Stop beating around the bush. Get people to pay attention. Scrap those bullet points. Talk in a way that makes hearts flutter. Learn how to tell your story so that everyone who hears it cares and remembers. Columnist Dave Lieber has been working for more than 30 years to get his newspaper audiences to not turn the page on him. In today's world, it's harder than ever to get people to notice you. But there's one tried and true method that works every time. Dave will share his simple-to-use storytelling method and customize it for your industry. You can use these techniques immediately to increase sales, get that contract, and increase your loyal fan base whose members will help you, fund you, support you and care about you.

About Dave Lieber:

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National Speakers Association New Jersey Chapter NSA

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WikiLeaks' Julian Assange: NSA critics got lucky because agency had no PR strategy

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, speaking by Skype at SXSW today. Daniel Terdiman/CNET

AUSTIN, Tex.--National security reporters are a new kind of political refugee, but for the first time they've had a extremely powerful opponent without an effective public relations strategy.

Those were two of the main points delivered by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during a teleconference interview at South by Southwest today.

Assange, speaking over Skype from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, said that while the Internet had, over the last few years, been co-opted by the U.S. National Security Agency, the Pentagon, and other government organizations in what could amount to the "most aggressive form of state surveillance" ever created, critics had in some ways gotten lucky.

In the past, Assange said, the NSA had run a public relations strategy that relied on radio silence, to essentially not exist. But, he said, it appears that the intelligence agency was not prepared for the worldwide outcry that resulted from the release by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden of documents revealing the organization's massive surveillance efforts. "The Pentagon has [always had] that strategy of trotting out soldiers wrapped in flags trying to demonstrate bravery, but the NSA didn't have that strategy," Assange said. "We got lucky, because we ended up with an opponent that didn't have a PR strategy."

What that's meant, he suggested, is that while the NSA has almost certainly not curtailed its surveillance actions, it has come under much brighter scrutiny than ever before, with substantial coverage of what it does, and intense criticism, both at home and abroad. And that, though change may be slow, can only be a good thing.

To be sure, many of the leading voices in the community of critics of national-security surveillance have had to run from prosecution. Assange, for example, has been forced to hole up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for nearly two years to avoid prosecution. Similarly, Snowden is in exile in Russia, and four other vocal critics, Glenn Greenwald, Jacob Applebaum, Sarah Harrison, and Laura Poitras are all living outside the United States and Britain. Greenwald is in Brazil, while Applebaum, Harrison, and Poitras are all living in Berlin.

To be sure, those critics have lost much of their personal freedom, at least insofar as where they live and work, and as such have become what Assange called "a new type of [political] refugee."

In addition to Assange, both Snowden and Greenwald will be speaking to SXSW by teleconference.

At the same time, though, Assange said he and the others have a freedom few political critics, especially those on the run, have never had before. Thanks to the Internet, each can still work and criticize organizations like the NSA, and similar institutions abroad. And in Assange's own situation, because he is protected inside an embassy, he is outside the reach of British police or other attempts to silence him. "To some degree," he said, "it is every national security reporter's dream, to be in a land without police."

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Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution …

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The Fifth Amendment (Amendment V) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights and protects against abuse of government authority.

The Amendment requires that felonies be tried only upon indictment by a grand jury; the Grand Jury Clause is one of the few provisions of the Bill of Rights not held to have been incorporated to the states, most of which have replaced grand juries. The Amendment also provides several trial protections, including the right against self-incrimination (held to also apply to custodial interrogations and before most government bodies) as well as the right to be tried only once ("double jeopardy") in federal court for the same offense. The Amendment also has a Due Process Clause (similar to the one in the 14th Amendment) as well as an implied equal protection requirement (Bolling v. Sharpe). Finally, the Amendment requires that the power of eminent domain be coupled with "just compensation" for those whose property is taken.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.[1]

Whether a crime is "infamous" is determined by the nature of the punishment that may be imposed, not the punishment that is actually imposed;[2] however, crimes punishable by death must be tried upon indictments. In United States v. Moreland, 258 U.S. 433 (1922), the Supreme Court held that incarceration in a prison or penitentiary, as opposed to a correction or reformation house, attaches infamy to a crime. In Mackin v. United States, 117 U.S. 348 (1886), the Supreme Court judged that "'Infamous crimes' are thus, in the most explicit words, defined to be those 'punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary.'", while it later in Green v. United States 356 U.S. 165 (1957), stated that "imprisonment in a penitentiary can be imposed only if a crime is subject to imprisonment exceeding one year". Therefore an infamous crime is one that is punished by imprisonment for over one year. Susan Brown, a former defense attorney and Professor of Law at the University of Dayton School of Law, concluded: "Since this is essentially the definition of a felony, infamous crimes translate as felonies."[3]

Grand juries, which return indictments in many criminal cases, are composed of a jury of peers and operate in closed deliberation proceedings; they are given specific instructions regarding the law by the judge. Many constitutional restrictions that apply in court or in other situations do not apply during grand jury proceedings. For example, the exclusionary rule does not apply to certain evidence presented to a grand jury; the exclusionary rule states that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth, Fifth or Sixth amendments cannot be introduced in court.[4] Also, an individual does not have the right to have an attorney present in the grand jury room during hearings. An individual would have such a right during questioning by the police while in custody, but an individual testifying before a grand jury is free to leave the grand jury room to consult with his or her attorney outside the room before returning to answer a question.

Currently, federal law permits the trial of misdemeanors without indictments.[5] Additionally, in trials of non-capital felonies, the prosecution may proceed without indictments if the defendants waive their Fifth Amendment right.

Grand jury indictments may be amended by the prosecution only in limited circumstances. In Ex Parte Bain, 121 U.S. 1 (1887), the Supreme Court held that the indictment could not be changed at all by the prosecution. United States v. Miller, 471 U.S. 130 (1985) partly reversed Ex parte Bain; now, an indictment's scope may be narrowed by the prosecution. Thus, lesser included charges may be dropped, but new charges may not be added.

The Grand Jury Clause of the Fifth Amendment does not protect those serving in the armed forces, whether during wartime or peacetime. Members of the state militia called up to serve with federal forces are not protected under the clause either. In O'Callahan v. Parker, 395 U.S. 258 (1969), the Supreme Court held that only charges relating to service may be brought against members of the militia without indictments. That decision was overturned in 1987, when the Court held that members of the militia in actual service may be tried for any offense without indictments.[6]

The grand jury indictment clause of the Fifth Amendment has not been incorporated under the Fourteenth Amendment.[7] This means that the grand jury requirement applies only to felony charges in the federal court system. While many states do employ grand juries, no defendant has a Fifth Amendment right to a grand jury for criminal charges in state court. States are free to abolish grand juries, and many (though not all) have replaced them with preliminary hearing.

The Double Jeopardy Clause encompasses four distinct prohibitions: subsequent prosecution after acquittal, subsequent prosecution after conviction, subsequent prosecution after certain mistrials, and multiple punishment in the same indictment.[9] Jeopardy "attaches" when the jury is empaneled in a jury trial, when the first witness is sworn in during a bench trial, or when a plea is accepted unconditionally.[10]

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Fifth Amendment | Wex Legal Dictionary / Encyclopedia …

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The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides, "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The clauses incorporated within the Fifth Amendment outline basic constitutional limits on police procedure. The Framers derived the Grand Juries Clause and the Due Process Clause from the Magna Carta, dating back to 1215. Scholars consider the Fifth Amendment as capable of breaking down into the following five distinct constitutional rights: grand juries for capital crimes, a prohibition on double jeopardy, a prohibition against required self-incrimination, a guarantee that all criminal defendants will have a fair trial, and a promise that the government will not seize private property without paying market value. While the Fifth Amendment originally only applied to federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the Fifth Amendment's provisions as now applying to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Grand juries are a holdover from hundreds of years ago, originating during Britain's early history. Deeply-rooted in the Anglo-American tradition, the grand jury originally served to protect the accused from overly-zealous prosecutions by the English monarchy.

Congressional statutes outline the means by which a grand jury shall be impaneled. Ordinarily, the grand jurors are selected from the pool of prospective jurors who potentially could serve on a given day in any juror capacity. At common-law, a grand jury consists of between 12 and 23 members. Because the Grand jury was derived from the common-law, courts use the common-law as a means of interpreting the Grand Jury Clause. While state legislatures may set the statutory number of grand jurors anywhere within the common-law requirement of 12 to 23, statutes setting the number outside of this range violate the Fifth Amendment. Federal law has set the federal grand jury number as falling between 16 and 23.

A person being charged with a crime that warrants a grand jury has the right to challenge members of the grand juror for partiality or bias, but these challenges differ from peremptory challenges, which a defendant has when choosing a trial jury. When a defendant makes a peremptory challenge, the judge must remove the juror without making any proof, but in the case of a grand juror challenge, the challenger must establish the cause of the challenge by meeting the same burden of proof as the establishment of any other fact would require. Grand juries possess broad authority to investigate suspected crimes. They may not, however, conduct "fishing expeditions" or hire individuals not already employed by the government to locate testimony or documents. Ultimately, grand juries may make a presentment. During a presentment the grand jury informs the court that they have a reasonable suspicion that the suspect committed a crime.

The Double Jeopardy Clause aims to protect against the harassment of an individual through successive prosecutions of the same alleged act, to ensure the significance of an acquittal, and to prevent the state from putting the defendant through the emotional, psychological, physical, and financial troubles that would accompany multiple trials for the same alleged offense. Courts have interpreted the Double Jeopardy Clause as accomplishing these goals by providing the following three distinct rights: a guarantee that a defendant will not face a second prosecution after an acquittal, a guarantee that a defendant will not face a second prosecution after a conviction, and a guarantee that a defendant will not receive multiple punishments for the same offense. Courts, however, have not interpreted the Double Jeopardy Clause as either prohibiting the state from seeking review of a sentence or restricting a sentence's length on rehearing after a defendant's successful appeal.

Jeopardy refers to the danger of conviction. Thus, jeopardy does not attach unless a risk of the determination of guilt exists. If some event or circumstance prompts the trial court to declare a mistrial, jeopardy has not attached if the mistrial only results in minimal delay and the government does not receive added opportunity to strengthen its case.

The Fifth Amendment protects criminal defendants from having to testify if they may incriminate themselves through the testimony. A witness may "plead the Fifth" and not answer if the witness believes answering the question may be self-incriminatory.

In the landmark Miranda v. Arizona ruling, the United States Supreme Court extended the Fifth Amendment protections to encompass any situation outside of the courtroom that involves the curtailment of personal freedom. 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Therefore, any time that law enforcement takes a suspect into custody, law enforcement must make the suspect aware of all rights. Known as Miranda rights, these rights include the right to remain silent, the right to have an attorney present during questioning, and the right to have a government-appointed attorney if the suspect cannot afford one.

If law enforcement fails to honor these safeguards, courts will often suppress any statements by the suspect as violative of the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination, provided that the suspect has not actually waived the rights. An actual waiver occurs when a suspect has made the waiver knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily. To determine if a knowing, intelligent and voluntary waiver has occurred, a court will examine the totality of the circumstances, which considers all pertinent circumstances and events. If a suspect makes a spontaneous statement while in custody prior to being made aware of the Miranda rights, law enforcement can use the statement against the suspect, provided that police interrogation did not prompt the statement.

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5th Amendment – Revolutionary War and Beyond

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The 5th Amendment is better known to most Americans than the other amendments in the Bill of Rights because of the familiar phrase "I plead the fifth," often used as a defense in criminal trials. The 5th Amendment also guarantees Americans several other basic rights, including the right to trial by Grand Jury for certain crimes, the right not to be tried or punished more than once for the same crime, the right to be tried only with due process of law and the right to be paid fair compensation for any property taken by the government for public use. The Fifth Amendment reads like this:

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The 5th Amendment is made up of 5 specific parts containing 6 different clauses, including:

On the page below, you can read a little about each clause. Then, if you would like to know more about that particular clause of the 5th Amendment, just click on the link for more information.

The 5th Amendment opens with the Grand Jury Clause. It reads like this:

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury."

The Grand Jury Clause guarantees that Americans cannot be charged with serious federal crimes except with an indictment by a grand jury. This is generally considered to be a protection from corrupt government officials who might try to prosecute people unfairly, because a group of fellow citizens is required to look over the evidence first.

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Grand Jury at the Arcadia Hotel fire in Boston, 1913

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5th Amendment - Revolutionary War and Beyond

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Fifth Amendment – The Text, Origins, and Meaning of the …

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Text of Amendment: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. Indictment by a Grand Jury: Nobody can go to trial for a serious crime, except in a military setting, without first being indicted by a grand jury. Double Jeopardy:

The Fifth Amendment also mandates that defendants, once acquitted on a charge, may not be tried again for the same offense at the same jurisdictional level. Defendants may be tried again if the previous trial ended in a mistrial or hung jury, if there is evidence of fraud in the previous trial, or if the charges are not precisely the same--for example, the police officers who beat Rodney King, after being acquitted on state charges, were convicted on federal charges for the same offense.

The best known clause in the Fifth Amendment ("No person ... shall be compelled in a criminal case to be a witness against himself") protects suspects from forced self-incrimination. When a suspect invokes his or her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, this is referred to in the vernacular as "pleading the Fifth." It should not by any means be taken as a sign of guilt, but it is generally portrayed as such in courtroom television dramas.

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The Fourth Amendment is destroyed by the Roberts led Supreme Court. – Video

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The Fourth Amendment is destroyed by the Roberts led Supreme Court.
In May of 2011 the SCOTUS ruled on a lower state courts decision to throw out a case of drug possession because there was no valid search warrant for the sea...

By: Paul La Bonte

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The Fourth Amendment is destroyed by the Roberts led Supreme Court. - Video

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Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution …

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The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It was adopted in response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, a type of general search warrant issued by the British government and a major source of tension in pre-Revolutionary America. The Fourth Amendment was introduced in Congress in 1789 by James Madison, along with the other amendments in the Bill of Rights, in response to Anti-Federalist objections to the new Constitution. Congress submitted the amendment to the states on September 28, 1789. By December 15, 1791, the necessary three-quarters of the states had ratified it. On March 1, 1792, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson announced the adoption of the amendment.

Because the Bill of Rights did not initially apply to the states, and federal criminal investigations were less common in the first century of the nation's history, there is little significant case law for the Fourth Amendment before the 20th century. The amendment was held to apply to the states in Mapp v. Ohio (1961).

Under the Fourth Amendment, search and seizure (including arrest) should be limited in scope according to specific information supplied to the issuing court, usually by a law enforcement officer who has sworn by it. Fourth Amendment case law deals with three central questions: what government activities constitute "search" and "seizure"; what constitutes probable cause for these actions; and how violations of Fourth Amendment rights should be addressed. Early court decisions limited the amendment's scope to a law enforcement officer's physical intrusion onto private property, but with Katz v. United States (1967), the Supreme Court held that its protections, such as the warrant requirement, extend to the privacy of individuals as well as physical locations. Law enforcement officers need a warrant for most search and seizure activities, but the Court has defined a series of exceptions for consent searches, motor vehicle searches, evidence in plain view, exigent circumstances, border searches, and other situations.

The exclusionary rule is one way the amendment is enforced. Established in Weeks v. United States (1914), this rule holds that evidence obtained through a Fourth Amendment violation is generally inadmissible at criminal trials. Evidence discovered as a later result of an illegal search may also be inadmissible as "fruit of the poisonous tree," unless it inevitably would have been discovered by legal means.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.[1]

Like many other areas of American law, the Fourth Amendment finds its roots in English legal doctrine. Sir Edward Coke, in Semayne's case (1604), famously stated: "The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose."[2]Semayne's Case acknowledged that the King did not have unbridled authority to intrude on his subjects' dwellings but recognized that government agents were permitted to conduct searches and seizures under certain conditions when their purpose was lawful and a warrant had been obtained.

The 1760s saw a growth in the intensity of litigation against state officers, who, using general warrants, conducted raids in search of materials relating to John Wilkes's publications attacking both government policies and the King himself. The most famous of these cases involved John Entick, whose home was forcibly entered by the King's Messenger Nathan Carrington, along with others, pursuant to a warrant issued by George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax authorizing them "to make strict and diligent search for... the author, or one concerned in the writing of several weekly very seditious papers intitled, 'The Monitor or British Freeholder, No 257, 357, 358, 360, 373, 376, 378, and 380,'" and seized printed charts, pamphlets and other materials. Entick filed suit in Entick v Carrington, argued before the Court of King's Bench in 1765. Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden ruled that both the search and the seizure was unlawful, as the warrant authorized the seizure of all of Entick's papersnot just the criminal onesand as the warrant lacked probable cause to even justify the search. By holding that "[O]ur law holds the property of every man so sacred, that no man can set his foot upon his neighbour's close without his leave",[4]Entick established the English precedent that the executive is limited in intruding on private property by common law.

Homes in Colonial America, on the other hand, did not enjoy the same sanctity as their British counterparts, because legislation had been explicitly written so as to enable enforcement of British revenue-gathering policies on customs; until 1750, in fact, the only type of warrant defined in the handbooks for justices of the peace was the general warrant. During what scholar William Cuddihy called the "colonial epidemic of general searches", the authorities possessed almost unlimited power to search for anything at any time, with very little oversight.

In 1756, the colony of Massachusetts enacted legislation that barred the use of general warrants. This represented the first law in American history curtailing the use of seizure power. Its creation largely stemmed from the great public outcry over the Excise Act of 1754, which gave tax collectors unlimited powers to interrogate colonists concerning their use of goods subject to customs. The act also permitted the use of a general warrant known as a writ of assistance, allowing tax collectors to search the homes of colonists and seize "prohibited and uncustomed" goods.

A crisis erupted over the writs of assistance on December 27, 1760 when the news of King George II's death on October 23 arrived in Boston. All writs automatically expired six months after the death of the King and would have had to be re-issued by George III, the new king, to remain valid.

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Fourth amendment | Wex Legal Dictionary / Encyclopedia …

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The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Ultimately, these words endeavor to protect two fundamental liberty interests - the right to privacy and freedom from arbitrary invasions.

A search occurs when an expectation of privacy that society considers reasonable is infringed by a governmental employee or by an agent of the government. Private individuals who are not acting in either capacity are exempt from the Fourth Amendment prohibitions.

A seizure refers to the interference with an individual's possessory interest in property. To meet the definition of an unreasonable seizure, the property's owner must have had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the items seized. A person is seized when law enforcement personnel use physical force to restrain the person if a reasonable person in the same or a similar situation would not feel free to leave the situation. The previous owner of abandoned property cannot allege an unreasonable seizure of that abandoned property. Abandoned property is property left behind by its owner in a manner in which the owner abandons the possessory interest in the property and no longer retains a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to the search.

The prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures particularly affects the work of law enforcement personnel by restricting the actions that they may take in performing a criminal investigation; however, the ban also disallows unreasonable searches and seizures in the civil litigation context. Law enforcement may only conduct a search if individualized suspicion motivates the search. The Fourth Amendment prohibits generalized searches, unless extraordinary circumstances place the general public in danger.

To sue regarding an alleged Fourth Amendment violation, the plaintiff must have standing. Standing with respect to Fourth Amendment violations requires that the plaintiff have had a legitimate expectation of privacy at the searched location. A legitimate expectation of privacy must meet both the subjective and objective tests of reasonableness. The subjective test requires that the plaintiff actually and genuinely expected privacy, and the objective test requires that given the circumstances, a reasonable person in the same or a similar situation would have expected privacy as well.

The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution applies the Fourth Amendment's provisions against the states as well as the federal government. See Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961).

Courts ordinarily suppress evidence obtained during an unreasonable search or seizure and offered against the accused. See Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961). This rule, known as the exclusionary rule, applies equally to both the investigatory and accusatory stages of a criminal prosecution.

In order to avoid illegally searching or seizing the property of a suspect, law enforcement personnel typically obtain search warrants. To obtain a search warrant, law enforcement must show probable cause, must support the showing by oath or affirmation, and must describe in particularity the place they will search and the items they will seize. A judge can find probable cause only be examining the totality of the circumstances.

Different types of warrants exist. A knock-and-announce warrant requires law enforcement personnel to knock on the door of a residence and announce their identity before entering, giving the owner or occupier an opportunity to answer the door. In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that law enforcement's failure to knock or announce when in possession of a knock-and-announce warrant does not necessitate use of the exclusionary rule. See Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586 (2006).

No knock warrants allow law enforcement personnel to enter a building or home without announcing their presence and without knocking on the door first. Courts reserve these warrants for situations in which a building's owner or occupier could destroy the sought-after evidence by the time law enforcement waits for the owner or occupier to open the door.

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