Inconvenience is hardly the reason for the 4th was put in place, saying that we can moot the whole thing because technology has solved that inconvenient bit seems really disingenuous. The 4th doesn't say "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause... except in cases of extreme convenience, then we can just play it by ear."

It is a clear as daylight protection of against governmental abuse. And honestly I don't know about you, but I rather have my house searched then my computers any day of the week. One's a place I sleep, the other has deep insights on me as an individual.

There are parts of the fourth amendment. The first part is a protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The second part is a requirement of probable cause for warrants.

The question of the heart of most modern fourth amendment debates is what constitutes a search (and, by extension, requires a warrant). For example, does the government require a warrant to work with the phone company to tap my line [0].

The original push for the 4th amendment protections were abuses of the writ of assistance, wherein British authorities could search any house and seize contraband. [1]. As far as I can tell, the fourth amendment was designed as a protection of property rights and against governmental harassment. I have not seen any evidence that it was written with privacy rights in mind.

In Katz v United States [2] Justice Stewart, in the majority opinion, wrote:

the Fourth Amendment cannot be translated into a general constitutional "right to privacy." That Amendment protects individual privacy against certain kinds of governmental intrusion, but its protections go further, and often have nothing to do with privacy at all. [n4] Other provisions of the Constitution protect personal privacy from other forms of governmental invasion. [n5] But the protection of a person's general right to privacy -- his right to be let alone by other people [n6] -- is, like the [p351] protection of his property and of his very life, left largely to the law of the individual States.

[0] Or rather, does the fourth amendment require the government to get a warrant. [1] Yes, this process was highly suspectable to abuse. The most relevant modern analogy would be civil forfeiture. [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/389/347#writin...

I think part of what made home searches annoying in the colonial era was that they were disproportionately applied to the political opponents of the colonialist status quo. We see those concerns reappear in the modern day in the form of, e.g. loveint, and presumably other pernicious politically motivated investigations. The federal code is so broad as to be able to be used to harass anyone for a legion of infractions at any given moment, so it is a reasonable threat.

never heard of LOVEINT before! awesome