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Understanding Search and Seizure Law
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A good example of how this works comes from a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court held that a bus passenger had a legitimate expectation of privacy in an opaque carry-on bag positioned in a luggage rack above the passenger's head, and that the physical probing by the police of the bag's exterior for evidence of contraband constituted a search subject to Fourth Amendment limitations. (Bond v. U.S., No. 98-9349 (April 17, 2000).)
| Restrictions on Private Security Personnel |
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Private security personnel currently outnumber police officers in the United States by three to one. As a result, whether you're shopping in a supermarket or a pharmacy, working in an office building, or visiting a friend in a housing project, you may be more likely to be confronted by a security guard than by a police officer. At the present time, the Fourth Amendment does not apply to searches carried out by non-governmental employees like private security guards.
For example, assume that a shopping mall security guard acting on a pure hunch searches a teenager's backpack. Inside the backpack the guard finds a baggie containing an illegal drug. The guard can detain the teenager, call the police, and turn the drug over to a police officer. The drug is admissible in evidence, because the search was conducted by a private security guard. As private security guards increasingly exercise traditional police functions, courts may one day apply Fourth Amendment guidelines to their conduct.
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