Does the Fourth Amendment Exist Any More?

by Will Grigg
Jun. 13, 2013

When Boulder, Colorado resident Chrissy Smiley returned to her condo after walking her dog, she was stunned to find a card from a police officer on her dining room table. When she called the department she was informed that the fact she had left a sliding door unlocked and partially open constituted “probable cause” to conduct a welfare check, Smiley recalled to the Boulder Camera newspaper. The Boulder Police Department insists that entering what they call “unsecured residences” is “standard operating procedure” and that it will continue.

In Stillwater, Minnesota Sonya Sylos was startled to find a sheriff’s deputy and two police officers who had entered her home at 2:00 a.m. without a warrant or permission. The officers said they wanted to talk with Sylos about her son, who was not a criminal suspect but was allegedly a friend of another individual who had fled from police during a traffic stop. Their questioning persisted even after Sylos told them they did not have permission to be in her home.

In the garrison state America has become, the police – like their Soviet and Nazi forebears -- assume that they no longer need permission to invade our homes or otherwise inflict their uninvited attention upon us.