TITLE:
Katz among the Pigeons: The Erosion of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America
AUTHORS:
G. E. Minchin
KEYWORDS:
Fourth Amendment, US v Boyd, Katz v US
JOURNAL NAME:
Beijing Law Review,
Vol.11 No.2,
May
28,
2020
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.