Editing Search and seizure (section)

===Warrant requirement===
The general rule under the [[United States Constitution]] is that a valid warrant is required for a search. There are, however, several exceptions to this rule, based on the language of the fourth amendment that the people are to be "secure ... against unreasonable searches and seizures".

For instance, the owner of the property in question may [[Consent searches|consent to the search]]. The consent must be voluntary, but there is no clear test to determine whether or not it is; rather, a court will consider the "[[totality of the circumstances]]" in assessing whether consent was voluntary. Police officers are ''not'' technically required to advise a suspect that he may refuse, however this policy depends on the specific rules of the department. There are also some circumstances in which a third party who has equal control, i.e. common authority, over the property may consent to a search. Another example of unreasonable search and seizure is in the court case ''[[Mapp v. Ohio]]''.<ref>{{cite web|title=''Mapp v. Ohio'', 367 US 643, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081 (1961) |url=https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=589965672959279882 |publisher=Google Scholar |access-date=11 September 2017}}</ref>

When an individual does not possess a "[[reasonable expectation of privacy]]" that society is willing to acknowledge in a particular piece of property, any interference by the government with regard to that property is not considered a search for Fourth Amendment purposes, and a warrant is never required. For example, courts have found that a person does not possess a reasonable expectation of privacy in information transferred to a third party, such as writing on the outside of an envelope sent through the mail or left for pick-up in an area where others might view it. While that does not mean that the person has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of that envelope, the Court has held that one does not possess a reasonable expectation of privacy that society is willing to acknowledge in the contents of garbage left outside the [[curtilage]] of a home.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wilkins |first1=Richard G. |title=Defining the reasonable expectation of privacy: an emerging tripartite analysis |journal=Vanderbilt Law Review |date=1987 |volume=40 |page=1077 |url=http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/vanlr40&div=48&id=&page=}}</ref>

[[File:DEA_Operation_Reciprocity_-_money_seizure.png|thumb|[[Drug Enforcement Administration|DEA]] investigators found $5.6 million hidden in a ceiling compartment of a truck during a seizure (Operations Reciprocity, 1997).]]

There is also a lowered expectation of privacy inside of motor vehicles.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sklansky |first1=David A. |title=Traffic stops, minority motorists, and the future of the Fourth Amendment |journal=The Supreme Court Review|date=1 January 1997 |volume=1997 |page=271 |doi=10.1086/scr.1997.3109744 |s2cid=142595666 |url=https://lawcat.berkeley.edu:443/record/1116089/files/fulltext.pdf |access-date=11 September 2017}}</ref> However, ''[[Coolidge v. New Hampshire]]'' dictates that "the word 'automobile' is not a talisman in whose presence the Fourth Amendment fades away and disappears."<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/403/443/case.html | title=''Coolidge v. New Hampshire'', 403 U.S. 443 (1971)}}</ref>