Fourth Amendment Privacy

Even though the United States Constitution does not outright give American citizens the express right to privacy, many amendments contain the protection of certain privacies, more specifically the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The Fourteenth Amendment has a very broad claim, stating that “No State shall… deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The word “liberty” in this statement singlehandedly guarantees this wide sense of privacy to American citizens, as shown through countless amounts of court cases decided based upon this clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the past few decades, privacy rights are often debated closely relating to technology as new methods of hacking, …show more content…
These new discoveries in technology were not accounted for in the making of the Constitution, thereby creating an increased opportunity for a new amendment to be added, or supporting laws to be created, clearly making privacy a guaranteed right to American citizens.
In my personal opinion, I believe the right of privacy given in the Constitution should extend to students’ lockers and cell phones, protected under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, which guarantee the privacy of the Person and possessions, as well as the right to life, liberty, and property. Without reasonable doubt and suspicion that the contents of a student’s locker and/or cell phone contain harmful, dangerous, or illegal contents, students should not have their personal belongings, messages, pictures, and other medias searched or seized. I also believe that schools, along with their districts and states, should have the guidelines and measures for the process of searches and seizures of lockers and cell phones outlined specifically and clearly. In what instances and based off of what types of information the two areas would be searched and seized need to be