The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. In addition, it sets requirements for issuing warrants: warrants must be issued by a judge or magistrate, justified by probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and must particularly describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
Search and seizure is a procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems by which police or other authorities and their agents, who, suspecting that a crime has been committed, commence a search of a person's property and confiscate any relevant evidence found in connection to the crime.
New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States established the standard of reasonableness for searches of students conducted by public school officials in a school environment. The Court held that the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, specifically its prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures, applies to searches conducted by school officials. However, school officials do not need to have probable cause or obtain a warrant before searching a student. Instead, in order for a search to be justified, school officials must have reasonable suspicion that the student has violated either the law or school rules.
Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court redefined what constitutes "searches" and "seizures" with regard to the protections of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The decision expanded the Fourth Amendment's protections from the right of search and seizures of an individual's "persons, houses, papers, and effects", as defined in the Constitution, to include "what [a person] seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public" as a constitutionally protected area. The case introduced the Katz test to determine a reasonable expectation of privacy, defined as a two-part test written in a concurrence by Justice John Marshall Harlan II. The Katz test has been used in thousands of cases, particularly with the advancement of technology that poses new questions on expectations of privacy.
R v Collins [1987] 1 S.C.R. 265 1987 SCC 11 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on section 8 and was a leading case on section 24(2) of the Constitution Act, 1982 which allowed for the exclusion of evidence upon infringing the Charter. The Collins test for section 24(2) was developed for determining if the administration of justice was brought into disrepute by the inclusion of the evidence. The test was later replaced in R. v. Grant.
Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides everyone in Canada with protection against unreasonable search and seizure. This right provides Canadians with their primary source of constitutionally enforced privacy rights against unreasonable intrusion from the state. Typically, this protects personal information that can be obtained through searching someone in pat-down, entering someone's property or surveillance.
R v Tessling [2004] 3 S.C.R. 432, is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision where the Court held that the use of thermal imaging by police in the course of an investigation of a suspect's property did not constitute a violation of the accused's right to a reasonable expectation of privacy under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
R v Wong, [1990] 3 S.C.R. 36, is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on the evidence obtained by electronic video surveillance conducted without authorization. The Court held that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a hotel room. This expectation does not depend on whether those persons were engaging in illegal activities. Therefore, individuals can expect that agents of the state will not engage in warrantless video surveillance. Electronic surveillance without authorization violates Section Eight of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, for this particular case, the Supreme Court held that the police acted in good faith and had reasonable and probable ground to believe criminal activities were committed. The surveillance without authorization was a result of misunderstanding. Hence, acceptance of the surveillance as evidences will not bring the administration of justice into disrepute under Section Twenty-four of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Expectation of privacy is a legal test which is crucial in defining the scope of the applicability of the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is related to, but is not the same as, a right to privacy, a much broader concept which is found in many legal systems.
Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405 (2005), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Fourth Amendment is not violated when the use of a drug-sniffing dog during a routine traffic stop does not unreasonably prolong the length of the stop.
R v Belnavis, [1997] 3 S.C.R. 341, is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the right against unreasonable search and seizure under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Court held that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the backseat of a car.
R v Duarte, [1990] 1 SCR 30 is a leading case decided by the Supreme Court of Canada on the right to privacy under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter"). The Court held that a warrantless and surreptitious video recording of private communications violated section 8. Consent of only one party to a conversation is insufficient to be reasonable.
The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) is an autonomous, non-partisan charitable society that seeks to "promote, defend, sustain, and extend civil liberties and human rights." It works towards achieving this purpose through litigation, lobbying, complaint assistance, events, social media, and publications. Founded in 1962, it is Canada's oldest civil liberties association. It is based in Vancouver and is jointly funded by the Law Foundation of British Columbia and by private citizens through donations and memberships.
Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67 (2001), is a United States Supreme Court decision that found Medical University of South Carolina's policy regarding involuntary drug testing of pregnant women to violate the Fourth Amendment. The Court held that the search in question was unreasonable.
R v Grant, 2009 SCC 32 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on section 9, section 10 and section 24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter"). The Court created a number of factors to consider when determining whether a person had been detained for the purpose of sections 9 and 10 of the Charter. The Court also created a new test for determining whether evidence obtained by a Charter breach should be excluded under section 24(2) of the Charter, replacing the Collins test.
R v Kang-Brown, [2008] 1 S.C.R. 456, 2008 SCC 18, is a constitutional decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on the limits of police powers for search and seizure. The Court found that police do not have the right to perform a sniffer-dog search of public spaces when such search is not specifically authorized by statute. In this case, a suspect's section 8 rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter") were violated when a police officer stopped him at a bus station and sniffer-dog searched his bag finding drugs in his possession.
R v Patrick, [2009] 1 S.C.R. 579, 2009 SCC 17, is a constitutional decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on the limits of police powers for search and seizure. The Court found that police have the right to take garbage bags placed for collection at edge of a property without warrant. In this case, the accused abandoned his privacy interest when he placed his garbage for collection at the rear of his property where it was accessible to any passing member of the public. His section 8 rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms were not violated when a police officer seized bags of garbage at the rear of his property and used the contents of seized bags as evidence of criminal activity.
R v AM, [2008] 1 S.C.R. 569, 2008 SCC 19, is a constitutional decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on the limits of police powers for search and seizure. The Court found that police do not have the right to perform a sniffer-dog search of public spaces when such search is not specifically authorized by statute. In this case, a student's section 8 rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter") were violated when a police officer sniffer-dog searched his unattended backpack in the gymnasium of his school finding drugs in his possession.
Ontario v. Quon, 560 U.S. 746 (2010), is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the extent to which the right to privacy applies to electronic communications in a government workplace. It was an appeal by the city of Ontario, California, from a Ninth Circuit decision holding that it had violated the Fourth Amendment rights of two of its police officers when it disciplined them following an audit of pager text messages that discovered many of those messages were personal in nature, some sexually explicit. The Court unanimously held that the audit was work-related and thus did not violate the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
R v Spencer is a Canadian constitutional law decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, concerning search and seizure law under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At issue was whether the police could request subscriber information associated with an IP address from an Internet service provider, on a voluntary basis under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and without prior judicial authorisation. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the request for internet subscriber information infringed the Charter's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure.
