I am sorry, this is a very simple amendment. It is difficult to see how it can be made any stronger.
4th Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
But it obviously needs to be strengthened. We have at least 30 years of constant intrusion upon this protection of our right of privacy from government intrusion into private matters. The majority of it has been spearheaded by an insane fear of drugs. It was extended to drugs.
Thirty years ago the police could break in on a pot party without knocking on the fear a whole ten dollars of marijuana could be flushed if they knocked. Two years ago a military style subdue or kill operation was carried out at Waco on the presumption that machineguns could be dumped into a septic tank.
There is no sane person that wishes to give such unlimited rights to the government. However, the trend of law and law enforcement and court decision is that the discovery of a new compelling government interest is sufficient to establish reasonableness of searches and seizures.
I do not care whether you are a druggie or detest drugs. I do not care if you are a liberal or a conservative. I do not care what you think about any of the above. I want to talk about the fact.
The fact is that as the government has declared a compelling government interest to be sufficient to create "reasonableness" of search and seizure, we all have a problem. At one time reasonableness meant reasonable suspicion that a person individually had committed a crime. Today, reasonable means that the government has a reasonable justification for violation of personal security.
Those are not the same thing. The Supreme Court decision that school kids who want to participate in the centuries old tradition of sports in schools must waive their constitutional rights (drug testing) to be part of this tradition is based upon the government haveing invented a reasonable justification. This is a perversion of the first magnitude.
You hate drugs, fine. Next year in your wildest imaginings the government mandates random drug tests as a condition of owning property. There is a compelling government interest in prohibiting drugs. If you want your title recorded and protected you have to submit to random drug searches of your property.
I know, that would never happen. Tell me anyone who can say with a straight face he agreed a year ago that high school kids would be subject to random drug testing just to participate in sports was constitutional. You want to reserve a time at the local tennis court? Please fill this cup.
The other side is folks who are in favor of abortion. Fine. You wish a job? Submit to an examination to determine if you have ever had an abortion or you can not be hired. It all depends upon the law if you give up the protection of the 4th amendment.
Guns? No problem. Random house searches for guns. Contraband insecticides? Don't bother asking. The EPA will conduct random no-knock searches. Is that a joke? The EPA wants complete control over all forms of the metal lead. Do you have any in your house? You bet your sweet bippy you and random searches will find it. They are a compelling government interest.
It is clear that the 4th amendment is not strong enough. The term "unreasonable" needs me modified to mean "of an exact and specific crime" as the only criteria of reasonableness.
We need to remember that the cause for this particular amendment was the policy of searching the homes of all revolutionaries because they were revolutionaries. We must remember there was a compelling government interest in suppressing revolution by any method available.
To repeat, any law that does not have overwhelming voluntary compliance can not be enforced by any means that does not violate the Bill of Rights. The drug laws are being enforced in total disregard of the Bill of Rights. That is the only way they can be enforced.
We need to amend the 4th amendment so that the word "unreasonable" has a much stronger meaning, such as "beyond all reasonable doubt" just to get this protection enforced by the courts and our government.
This is the time for one more amendment to the constitution. The legal erosion of the 4th is in clear contravention to its intention. It is time to put an end to this built in loophole that lawyers can drive a truck through.