The Fourth Amendment and the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

The USA Freedom Act provides cover for unconstitutional searches of citizens.

Andrew Napolitano | April 28, 2016

Would all of our lives be safer if the government could break down all the doors itWikimedia Commons wishes, listen to all the conversations it could find and read whatever emails and text messages it could acquire? Perhaps. But who would want to live in such a society?

To prevent that from happening here, the Framers ratified the Fourth Amendment, which is the linchpin of privacy and was famously called by Justice Louis Brandeis "the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men." He wrote those words in his dissent in the first wiretapping case to reach the Supreme Court, Olmstead v. United States, in 1928.......Evidence procured that is the fruit of the poisonous tree has been inadmissible in federal criminal prosecutions in the United States for the past 100 years and in state criminal prosecutions for the past 50 years.

Until now.......To Read More