Courtesy of fourthamendmentlaw.com here is an interesting summary of search law from the Oregon Federal Public Defender.
First he acknowledges that a persons privacy right has been restricted over the years and with the advent of technology privacy may get harder to protect.
A. Introduction
The revolution of the Warren Court, especially in the area of search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment, was largely an expansion of federal constitutional rights in the face of state practices that limited the protection of individual rights embodied in the Bill of Rights. The following outline of federal cases construing the protections of the Fourth Amendment reflects a dynamic tension between the need to secure evidence to convict law breakers and the protection of citizens’ reasonable expectations of privacy. The result has been an overall contraction of privacy rights. This outline sets out basic principles and counterpoints from which criminal defense lawyers can fashion arguments for a more expansive view of the Fourth Amendment’s protections.
And then he encourages us to do right by our clients – kinda quit moaning and start thinking.
In order to most effectively serve clients, developments in Supreme Court construction of the Fourth Amendment must be followed. Rather than dwelling on the negative aspects of the recent trends, the purpose of this article is to trace developments in selected areas and juxtapose the lead cases with federal court cases in which the defendant prevailed. The counterpoints are not intended to be exhaustive, but are provided to encourage creative use of the available precedents that may make a decisive difference for clients in state or federal court.