The Fourth Amendment protections apply to all free persons. Honoring the Fourth Amendment will sometimes increase the difficulty of catching crooks, but it will seldom pose an insurmountable obstacle to enforcement of reasonable laws. Unfortunately, the War on Drugs has been used to shred the Fourth Amendment almost beyond recognition.
Agreed, but what exactly are 'vital protections to criminals'? Is it a game where there are fair and unfair ways to catch mass murderers? 'Vital protections to suspected criminals' makes sense to me, but 'vital protections' to criminals does not. I think I might be splitting hairs here.