A Quote by Potter Stewart

It must always be remembered that what the Constitution forbids is not all searches and seizures, but unreasonable searches and seizures.

Potter Stewart

Quote Topics

Always Constitution Must Remembered Seizures Unreasonable Unreasonable Searches

Quote Author

Potter Stewart
American - Judge
January 23, 1915 - December 7, 1985

The U.S. Supreme Court has eviscerated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, giving the police license to sweep communities, to conduct 'stop and frisk' operations.

Michelle Alexander

Our government should not be spying on the electronic communications of American citizens. Nor should our iPhones or Android devices be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures.

Gary Johnson

Violating the 4th Amendment guarantees against illegal searches and seizures is not the way to solve crime problems.

Tim Wise

Disturbingly, the First Amendment, along with the Fourth Amendment - protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures, and requiring warrants - have been the major casualties of the shift in government policy in the last two decades. Unfortunately, I think that the biggest consequences of this tragedy won't be clear until it is far, far too late.

Chelsea Manning

When people talked about protecting their privacy when I was growing up, they were talking about protecting it from the government. They talked about unreasonable searches and seizures, about keeping the government out of their bedrooms.

Al Franken

And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.

Samuel Adams

We need to coordinate closely with international partners, right down to tightly-coordinated execution of seizures, searches, and arrests, so that instead of capturing a single criminal, we're taking down an entire enterprise.

Christopher A. Wray

There are just a host of problems born by the electronic age. Things we couldn't even conceive of. I was amused by the analogy that Justice Scalia made in a case about a GPS tracker so you don't know that's being done to your car, is that a violation of your right to protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. So Justice Scalia imagines a constable clinging to the bottom of a carriage as it went on its way, so there was some notion that this similar: there is an official eye that's on you, but you don't know about it. Yes, there are all kinds of challenges.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

You cannot do anything without rousing the masses to action. A plenary meeting of the Soviet must be called to decide on mass searches in Petrograd and the goods stations. To carry out these searches, each factory and company must form contingents, not on a voluntary basis: it must be the duty of everyone to take part in these searches under the threat of being deprived of his bread card. We can't expect to get anywhere unless we resort to terrorism: speculators must be shot on the spot. Moreover, bandits must be dealt with just as resolutely: they must be shot on the spot.

Vladimir Lenin

I feel the best way to ensure Americans' freedom is to tighten restrictions on that freedom in any way possible. Only through wiretaps, illegal searches and seizures, unfettered government intrusion, a controlled media and a complete crackdown on free speech can we ensure the liberties of all people.

John Ashcroft

The Constitution has a good share of deliberately open-ended guarantees, like rights to due process of law, equal protection of the law, and freedom from unreasonable searches.