Street law mini-project
The purpose of this mini-project was to answer the following question: How do we balance the need for personal privacy with the need to keep a safe, orderly, and just society? We began by reading and analyzing the 4th Amendment and part of the 5th Amendment. We also looked at the definitions of reasonable suspicion and probable cause, and applied these concepts to past Supreme Court cases. After watching a very informative video about how to act during police encounters, we got the chance to visit with two local police officers and discuss any remaining questions with them. Finally, we took this knowledge and applied it to a short project concerning any matter of 4th Amendment rights that happened to fascinate us.
For this project, I chose to work with two fellow classmates, Hannah Langford and Brittney Ketchum; all three of us were interested in the topic of smartphone rights in school. Outside school, law enforcement officials are required to have a warrant to search your phone but when you’re in school, the laws are different. Teachers only need basic suspicion to be able to search your phone or anything else (such as bags, pockets, lockers, body, and so on) if they feel that the educational environment is being jeopardized. In this day and age, peoples’ lives are so intertwined with their phones that very personal information is located on them, and having them searched is as embarrassing and revealing as a strip search. I wanted to know exactly what protections I had from unlawful searches in school. The three of us collaborated and developed the interactive flow chart pictured below, which outlines exactly when a teacher can and can’t search a phone.
For this project, I chose to work with two fellow classmates, Hannah Langford and Brittney Ketchum; all three of us were interested in the topic of smartphone rights in school. Outside school, law enforcement officials are required to have a warrant to search your phone but when you’re in school, the laws are different. Teachers only need basic suspicion to be able to search your phone or anything else (such as bags, pockets, lockers, body, and so on) if they feel that the educational environment is being jeopardized. In this day and age, peoples’ lives are so intertwined with their phones that very personal information is located on them, and having them searched is as embarrassing and revealing as a strip search. I wanted to know exactly what protections I had from unlawful searches in school. The three of us collaborated and developed the interactive flow chart pictured below, which outlines exactly when a teacher can and can’t search a phone.