Editing Probable cause (section)

==History and development==
[[File:Constitution of the United States WDL2708.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|The first page of the Constitution of the United States.]]
The use of probable cause in the United States and its integration in the [[Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourth Amendment]] has roots in [[English common law]] and the old saying that "a man's home is his castle". This is the idea that someone has the right to defend their "castle" or home from unwanted "attacks" or intrusion. In the 1600s, this saying started to apply legally to landowners to protect them from casual searches from government officials.<ref name="auto">{{cite book|last1=Zalman|first1=Marvin|title=Criminal Procedure: Constitution and Society|date=2011|publisher=Pearson/Prentice Hall|location=Upper Saddle River, N.J. |isbn=9780132457613|page=62|edition=6th}}</ref>

In the 1700s, the British use of the [[Writ of assistance|writs of assistance]] and general warrants, which allowed authorities to search wherever and whenever sometimes, without expiration date, in the American colonies were raised in several court cases. The first was in Massachusetts in 1761 when a customs agent submitted for a new writ of assistance and Boston merchants challenged its legality. In the case the lawyer for the merchants James Otis argued that writs of assistance violated the fundamentals of English Law and was unconstitutional. [[John Adams]], a lawyer at the time who later wrote the Massachusetts provision on which the Fourth Amendment heavily relied, was impacted by James Otis's argument<ref>{{cite book|last1=Zalman|first1=Marvin|title=Criminal Procedure: Constitution and Society|date=2011|publisher=Pearson/Prentice Hall|location=Upper Saddle River, N.J.|isbn=9780132457613|page=63|edition=6th}}</ref>

A case against general warrants was the English case [[Entick v Carrington|''Entick v. Carrington'']] (1765). In that case, [[Lord Camden]] the chief judge said that general warrants were not the same as specific warrants and that parliament or case law could not authorize general warrants. Along with these statements, Lord Camden also affirmed that the needs of the state were more important than the individual's rights. This upheld the ideology of the social contract while holding to idea that the government purpose was to protect the property of the people.<ref name="auto" /> He called for the government to seek reasonable means in order to search private property, as well as a cause.