Free civic education for students
Understand your constitutional rights.
Read the amendments, learn how courts interpret them, and work through examples from public schools and encounters with police.
Published by Quasi-Legal Institute, a nonprofit based in Madison, Wisconsin.
Rights in everyday situations
Practice with 25 exercises- Amendment 1Speech, religion, and protestProtects religion, speech, the press, assembly, and petition, and limits what the government can do about each.3 min read
- Amendment 4Searches and warrantsProtects you from unreasonable searches and seizures and sets the standard for when police need a warrant.3 min read
- Amendment 5Silence, due process, and propertyCovers grand juries, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, due process, and compensation for property taken by the government.3 min read
- Amendment 14Citizenship and equal protectionDefines citizenship and requires every state to provide due process and equal protection of the law.3 min read
Read the text: searches and warrants
Select a highlighted phrase in the Fourth Amendment to read its explanation.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
In plain language
What is protected
Your body, your home, your documents, and your belongings. Courts have applied “papers and effects” to modern things too: in Riley v. California (2014), the Supreme Court held that police generally need a warrant to search the data on a cell phone.