Article: Questioning "authority": fourth amendment consent searches.(Legal Digest)

The Fourth Amendment provides that "[t] he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated ...."(1) The scope of this language is vast, but one protection firmly rooted within its terms is the protection afforded to the privacy of a person's home from unreasonable government intrusion.(2) Thus, the Fourth Amendment consistently has been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court to prohibit law enforcement from entering a residence without a valid warrant, subject to a few jealously guarded exceptions.(3) One such exception to this general prohibition applies to entry made into a ...