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.
—United States Constitution
Without these rights officials have a tendency to barge into people’s houses or businesses and take what they want like thugs. A person’s home is his castle: his abode, his car, and his person are all sacred, and government officials have no right to enter people’s property or search them without due process of the law. As Lord Camden held:
The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property. That right is preserved sacred and incommunicable in all instances, where it has not been taken away or abridged by some public law … Every invasion of private property, be it ever so minute, is a trespass. No man can set his foot upon my ground without my license, but he is liable to an action … where the defendant is called upon to answer for bruising the grass and even treading upon the soil. (Entick v Carrington, (1765) 19 St 1030.)
