Warrantless Surveillance

To protect individual privacy, the Fourth Amendment imposes a simple requirement: get a warrant. But as technology has given the government new ways to gather and analyze large amounts of information, the government increasingly circumvents the warrant requirement through programs of warrantless mass surveillance. 

To get a warrant, the government must convince a judge that it has reason to think a search will produce evidence of a crime. Warrantless surveillance allows government to avoid that obligation. The government mounts cameras throughout a city to scan every car that passes by; compels businesses to file reports on the activities of customers; or creates networks to share information across jurisdictional boundaries—so that it can digitally keep tabs on citizens as they go about their everyday business. Such surveillance systems are ostensibly set up to solve and prevent crime, but it’s too often ordinary people that get caught in the net.  

In 2021, the Institute for Justice launched its Project on the Fourth Amendment to secure Americans’ right to be free from unjust searches and surveillance. IJ represents innocent people ensnared by warrantless surveillance, including: 

The Framers were aghast that petty officials could invade Americans’ security. Yet in too many ways, that’s precisely what has happened today. Governments at all levels have built technological dragnets to spy on everyday people going about their ordinary business, no warrant or suspicion needed.  

To restore our rights, the Institute for Justice is pushing back against population-level tracking and demanding that if law enforcement agents want to surveil someone, they first go to a neutral judge and explain why that surveillance is justified under the law.