Ep. 90 – Being Safe in your Home (Amendments 3 And 4)

The third and fourth amendments to the Constitution are all about making sure your home is safe from the government.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Now this is the FCB podcast Network. The greed us solved the army and
they thought so well, Working America. Welcome back to the growing patriot podcast,

(00:31):
American History for Kids. I'm yourhost Amelia Hamilton. This week,
we are continuing our journey through theBill of Rights by digging into the Third
and Fourth Amendments, which are allabout being safe in your house. The
Third Amendment says no soldier shall,in time of peace be quartered in any
house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but

(00:54):
in a manner to be prescribed bylaw. So that means that the government
can't force you to let soldiers stayin your house. The Fourth Amendment is
a little bit longer. It says, the right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses,papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and
seizures shall not be violated, andno warrants shall issue but upon probable cause,

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supported by oath or affirmation, andparticularly describing the place to be searched
and the persons or things to beseized. We will talk about what all
of that means, but first let'sget some questions from Clara. I'm Clara,

(01:42):
and I'm eight years old. I'malmost turning. I live in Milwaukee,
stock My favorite animals are a panda'shuskies instincts. I have some questions
for you. Why were the foundersworried about people coming into our homes?
What did probably will cause me?Why were they worried about the government searching

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their staff? If people don't haveanything to hide, why should they worry
about being searched. This is aforce a Fourth Amendment so important. Now,

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now we're going to hear from theman with the answers to those questions.
Rob Johnson from the Institute for Justice. Name is Rob Johnson. I'm
an attorney at the Institute for Justice. The Institute for Justice is a law
firm. It's a nonprofit law firm, meaning that we're a law firm that
exists to help people, not justto make money. And we do cases

(02:51):
against the government. So you know, when people are having problems with the
police or with other parts of thegovernment, they come to us and we
help them. Yeah, and Iknow we thought of you for a guest
today because you have a whole sectionof the law firm devoted to the Fourth
Amendment. Right, that is thatis exactly right? Yes, so we

(03:13):
do a few things, but alot of what we do is you know,
what we call property rights, soprotecting people's right to be secure in
their in their property like their homesor their other possessions, all their different
things. And part of that isthe Fourth Amendment. So we have a
project on the Fourth Amendment where wehelp to uphold people's Fourth Amendment rights.

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It great and so as we werelooking into this episode, you have a
certain Fourth Amendment really go together ina lot of ways because it's all about
being safe in your home. Andso I just quickly before we dive deeper
into the Fourth Amendment, wanted totalk a little bit about the third which
is no quartering soldiers in your home, which doesn't seem like something that's very

(04:00):
relevant to us today. But whywas it so important at our founding?
Of course, so at the timeof the founding, obviously you had you
know, the United States was acolony of a Great Britain, and the
British would send over troops to tryto keep the colony in line. And
rather than finding, you know,building a place for the soldiers to live

(04:25):
or having them camp out in thegrass or what have you, they would
actually force people to let the soldierslive in their in their homes, and
that was obviously not great for peopleto have soldiers living in their house.
And you know, we're gonna,I think we'll talk more about this idea

(04:45):
of privacy and wanting to have yourhome beer kind of private space. But
your home's not really very private ifyou have a soldier living in it,
right, and they had to takecare of them and feed them, which
got expensive. It's it was acrazy situations. So our founders wanted to
make sure that that peace was takencare of, keeping our homes secure.

(05:06):
So that really brings us into Claire'sfirst question, which is why were the
founders worried about people coming into ourhomes? You talked about quartering soldiers but
in them, you know, inrelation to the Fourth Amendment? Why was
that something they were worried about.Yeah, so it was a similar sort
of situation in some ways where youhad, again, you know, the

(05:28):
America was this a colony of GreatBritain, and Great Britain was trying to
keep the colony in line and alsotrying to you know, they had all
these taxes that nobody had voted on, and they were trying to collect tax
revenue, but these weren't really legitimatetaxes because nobody had voted to approve them,
and so they were trying to enforcethose kinds of rules and they were

(05:53):
just the problem was they weren't gettingwhat we call a warrant right. So
you the way it's supposed to workis you go to a judge and you
tell the judge, well, here'swhy I need to search for something,
and you actually have to prove thatyou have a reason to do it.
And they weren't doing that. Theywere just going into people's houses and they
had what we called general warrants,and that was like they would basically search

(06:16):
every house looking for something, andpeople it was invading on their privacy.
And I think, you know,I think about this. You come home
from school after a long day atschool and you just want to be alone
in your house with your family,and like, I know, my kids,

(06:38):
like that's for them such a theycome home and they're just exhausted from
the day at school and they justwant to like sit and veg out and
watch TV. And that's really kindof like what privacy is. It's the
ability just to be alone in yourhouse. Yeah, so when you talked
about going to a judge and needinga warrant, is that what is that?
What probable cause does that come intotheir Yes? Absolutely. So this

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is the whole idea of the FourthAmendment is you know, it's not saying
that the police can't go into people'shouses, because sometimes they do need to
go into someone's house. You know, if there's somebody who's done something wrong,
they've broken the law, and thepolice actually know, okay, we
have reason to think that this personbroke the law. Then if that's called

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probable cause, you know, probablecause to believe they broke the law.
And when the police have probable cause, what they do is they go to
a judge and they get the judgeto issue a warrant and then they can
use that they can take the warrantand that gives them permission to go into
somebody's house. It's basically like apermission slip for the police to go into

(07:46):
somebody's house and to look around.And yeah, so they need to convince
the judge that they have a reallygood reason to think that there's something in
there that they need to find.And then if the judge is convinced he
gives them that warrant permission slip exactly. And if the police don't have that
permission slip, then they need tostay out of somebody's house. And that's

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that's what gives you the sense ofprivacy in your home, that you don't
have police just kind of randomly comingin whenever they feel like it. Yeah,
So Claire had the interesting question thatif you don't have anything to hide,
why should you care if people comeand look at your stuff. It's
such a good question, and Ithink adults ask that question all the time

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too. Sometimes. Then the reality, though, there's a couple of things.
One is, you know, Ithink the first thing is that even
if you don't have something to hide, that there's this feeling of privacy that's
so important and just wanting to beyou know, your home is the place
where you can be yourself. Andmaybe if you're a kid when you go

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to school, you're trying to youknow, you're getting along with your friends,
you're trying to do what your teacherwant you to do, or if
you're an adults the same way you'reyou're at work, you're sort of being
who you have to be. Atwork and then you can come home,
and home is where you can justbe yourself, and that's you can't do
that if you have someone kind oflooking over your shoulder at home making sure

(09:18):
that you're you know, seeing whatyou're doing and seeing that you're doing you
know, what you're supposed to bedoing, and you can't have that feeling
of this is my private place.And then you know, the other reason
is we all hope that the lawsare going to be good laws, but
sometimes the people who make the lawsmake bad laws. And you know,

(09:41):
having that kind of privacy in yourhome it just means that you can you
can be yourself there and that youcan, you know, the police have
there's a space that you can havethat where the police can't stick their nose
into it, and there is somevalue in that in a kind of a
free sis like we have in thiscountry. Yeah, you so much of

(10:03):
the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, um, you know, are about
the government kind of minding their ownbusiness, and if they're in your business,
they're not minding their own Yeah,that's exactly right, you know,
And like I said, sometimes yousort of hopefully in the perfect world,
all the laws are good laws,and we all sort of agree with all
the laws, but you know,there's there is kind of space in society

(10:26):
for people just have that kind ofspace in their house to do what they
want to do. And you know, there've been times in history where governments
have tried to have laws, forinstance, to control what people can talk
about or what they can think andwhat opinions they can have about about different
sort of topics. And you know, luckily we don't have a government that
tries to do that too often.But you know, if you do have

(10:50):
a government that's trying to do that, then your right to privacy in your
house means you can, you know, you can have books that the government
can't read what you have in yourbooks. You can write things on paper
and they can't read what you wrotedown on paper, and that gives you
the privacy to have, you know, ideas that maybe otherwise we couldn't have,
to have conversations that maybe you couldn'totherwise have, And that's part of

(11:13):
what I think the founders were concernedabout, because again they were they were
coming out of a world where theydidn't necessarily have the ability to have open
public conversations about important things that theythat they wanted to talk about. Yeah,
we've talked a lot about freedom ofspeech and freedom of the press,
freedom of religion. UM, sothey definitely understood, you know, you

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need to keep your private space private. So two hundred some years later,
why is the Fourth Amendment still important? Well, you know, partly,
there's things that there's things that don'tchange. And you know, two hundred
years ago, people still lived inhouses, they still had you know,

(11:58):
the Fourth Amendment about your papers.They still had books and papers where they
wrote down their important ideas, andthey still had their you know, their
bags and their um you know,your your your briefcase or your book bag
or whatever. You know, Sothose things haven't changed. Those are still
our private places where we keep theprivate um you know, private objects that

(12:24):
are that are ours and that wedon't want people poking around in. And
none of that has changed, youknow. And and I as a lawyer,
I have cases where the police youknow, search people's houses their apartments,
um, you know, without awarrant, without probable cause. And
that today as much as two hundredyears ago, is something that impacts people.

(12:48):
And then you know the other thingis there are things that have changed
that actually make privacy matter even more. Right, So, today we have
the Internet, we have the abilityof the least too. You know,
they have tools they can use tolook in people's houses, like almost like
x ray vision type of things,you know, infra red to look inside

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your house without even having to goin your house. And the Fourth Amendment
applies to those sorts of things too, And in some ways, we need
a Fourth Amendment even more today thanwe did before because the police have even
more tools to invade your privacy thanthey did in the past. Yeah,

(13:33):
so I think the founders would bepretty happy with how the Third Amendment is
going. We haven't had any quarteringof soldiers happening. Um, what do
you think about the fourth They wouldthey have done it differently? Would they
be you know, shocked. I'msure they would be shocked by the technology
that's available, But they think thewould they think the Fourth Amendment is doing
its job still in part I thinkthey would. I think that to a

(13:54):
large extent, yes, right,Like our homes are still private, we
still have We don't live in asociety where we have police bargein into our
houses all the time. But atthe same time, I think there are
ways that the Fourth Amendment is notbeing applied the way that it was intended
to be. And especially that's true, um you know, people's business papers,

(14:18):
things like that. You know,there's the government has the ability just
to kind of look at you know, if you're an adult who has a
business, you have very little privacyin your your business papers. I don't
think it's right. And even youknow, like so ij for instance,
we have a clients who live inapartments, and you know, if you
rent an apartment rather than owning ahome, then the you have less ability

(14:43):
to keep people out. Um,you know, for like they do these
things they called them rental inspections.And I don't need to go into all
of it, but you know,there's it's it can be very invasive.
So kind of yes and a no. I think there's there's always there's always

(15:03):
the tendency when we have these rightsfor them to kind of slip away and
people find all this it's not convenientin this situation. It's not convenient in
this situation to respect people's rights,and we'll just make this exception or that
exception. And then suddenly you lookup and it's like we have all these
exceptions. Yeah, and where didthe right go? Yeah? So,

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what are some things that all ofus can be doing to help make sure
that the Fourth Amendment doesn't slip away? Well, you know, I think
that partly is just to recognize thatit matters to all of us. And
I think this goes back to thequestion of, you know, if someone
has nothing to hide, why wouldthey why would they care about the Fourth

(15:48):
Amendment? And I think it's it'syou know, when somebody else says,
hey, the police are invading myprivacy, I think that we all should
try to have the response of youknow, yeah, that's a problem.
The police shouldn't be invading your privacy, rather than why do you care?
And I think it's it's just alwaysimportant to put yourselves in the shoes of

(16:12):
other people in that way and tosupport people's right to privacy in that way.
Definitely. All right, So aswe wrap up, what is kind
of one big thing that you wantthe kids to keep in mind? Oh?
Boy? Um, you know,I think just I would just keep

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in mind that we we live ina free society, which means that you
know, at the end of theday, you are you have space to
make your own life and to makeyour own your own future, and to
kind of choose who you want tobe. And you know, when we

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talk about property rights, that's reallywhat it's about. And you can't you
can't be a person in the worldwithout a place to be, a place
to live, and without things thatare yours. And that's really why property
is so important, and that's whythe Fourth Amendment is so important, that

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it gives you that space to beyour own person. That is an excellent
way to think about it. RobThank you so much for joining us today
and telling us all about the Thirdand Fourth Amendments. Well, it's my
pleasure, thank you. And thereyou have it, Third and Fourth Amendments,

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which are all about keeping us safein our homes and keeping that space
private and not somewhere where a kingor the police or anyone else can just
bargain and have a look around.It's a really important right that we have
and we have to make sure wekeep protecting it. That's all for today,
and I can't wait to see younext time. Remember to stop by
growing patriots dot com to have alook at the Growing Patriot books, and

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you can find us on Twitter,Instagram, and Facebook at Growing Patriots until
next time. The Great US allJerey standing and they fought, so we
working America land over. This hasbeen a presentation of the FCB podcast Network

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