New technology makes the 4th Amendment more important than ever.
In recent years, the Fourth Amendment's applicability in electronic searches and seizures has received much attention from the courts. With the advent of the internet and increased popularity of computers, there has been an increasing amount of crime occurring electronically. Consequently, evidence of such crime can often be found on computers, hard drives, or other electronic devices. The Fourth Amendment applies to the search and seizure of electronic devices.
Many electronic search cases involve whether law enforcement can search a company-owned computer that an employee uses to conduct business. Although the case law is split, the majority holds that employees do not have a legitimate expectation of privacy with regard to information stored on a company-owned computer. In the 2010 case of City of Ontario v. Quon (08-1332), the Supreme Court extended this lack of an expectation of privacy to text messages sent and received on an employer-owned pager.
Lately, electronic surveillance and wiretapping has also caused a significant amount of Fourth Amendment litigation.
Fourth Amendment | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute (cornell.edu)