Developments on the Fourth Amendment and Privacy to the 21st Century 3
Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers, had a long relationship
with the postal system. In 1737 Franklin, then a printer, was declared to be
the operator of “the Post-Office of Philadelphia.” This helped his printing
business, as he was now in charge of both creating and distributing his materi-
als. In 1753 the British government named him a deputy postmaster general
of the colonies (along with William Hunter of Alexandria, Virginia). Dur-
ing his time with the postal service, Franklin recommended many improve-
ments, such as surveys for new post roads, the installation of mile markers,
the rerouting of some postal routes to shorten delivery times, and the use of
lanterns to enable nighttime deliveries.6
Franklin and Hunter addressed privacy concerns during their tenure. They
followed the 1710 Post Office Act, and they added other requirements to
ensure privacy. Their requirements included the following: postmasters were
required to keep the post office separate from their personal residence, only
authorized persons were allowed to handle the mail, mail bags were only
allowed to be opened once they had already arrived at their city of destina-
tion, and postmasters were required to ask for proof of identification when a
person came to retrieve a message.7
Benjamin Franklin lost his position as postmaster when he appeared to
be sympathetic to the revolutionaries in the American colonies. However,
he returned to his position in 1775 when the Second Continental Congress
established the United States Post Office and named Franklin its first United
States Postmaster General. Franklin remained in this post for 15 months, but
the concerns over privacy within the mail system continued to be a conten-
tious issue in the coming centuries.
Writs of Assistance
Over the years, many historians have credited the writs of assistance with
being a spark for the American Revolution and a significant contributing fac-
tor in the adoption of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A
writ of assistance is a written order issued by a court that provides instructions
to a law enforcement office to perform a particular task, similar to a general
warrant. The writ was used by the British in Colonial times as a way to limit
the colonies from trading with non-English industry. Customs officers were
allowed to enter any house or business to search for illegal imports, and they
did not need a warrant to do so. “The only practical limitation on the writ
was the life-span of the monarch in whose name the writ was issued; under
the terms of the statute adopted by Parliament, all writs of assistance auto-
matically expired six months after the death of the British king or queen.”8
In addition, after a judge issued a writ, there was no further requirement for
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