Katz among the Pigeons: The Erosion of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America

Abstract

In Katz v. United States the Supreme Court of the United States considered Fourth Amendment rights. This decision is seen as bolstering rights, as it rolled back previous decisions which restricted the scope of the Fourth Amendment. However, it did so by conceptualising the Fourth Amendment as a right to privacy when the text of the Amendment states it is to protect “the right of the people to be secure…”. This re-writing of the Fourth Amendment reduced a public “right of the people”, which reflects the broad societal perspective, to a merely personal right or interest. The Right was given broader scope but it was made weaker. In most circumstances a personal interest will be trumped by a public interest, such as law and order, because the latter will engage the interests of more people. What is lost is the public interest in restraining state power.