Cory Maye, a loving father of an 18 month old daughter at the time, was sleeping in his living room the day after Christmas at 12:30 a.m. when he heard banging at the door. He had no prior record, but lived in a rough neighborhood, where break-ins had taken place before, so he grabbed his pistol and ran to the back bedroom to defend his daughter.

In November 2013, Trevor Paine was on his through Humboldt County, Nevada on his way to California when he was stopped by a deputy from local sheriff's department for driving nine miles per hour over the speed limit on I-80. The deputy who stopped him claimed that his police dog had alerted him to something in Paine's vehicle and searched it without his consent.

This title was adopted from a line by Justice Sotomayor during the recent Supreme Court oral arguments in Rodriguez v. United States. Over time there has been an encroachment on our Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches, as Justice Sotomayor also said, “. . . we can’t keep bending the Fourth Amendment to the resources of law enforcement.” It is time for the courts to push back and protect our constitutional rights. Fortunately, two recent cases, one at the Supreme Court and another at the circuit level, have given great opportunities to do just this.

Section 213 of the PATRIOT Act creates what is known as “sneak and peek” warrant. Law enforcement is authorized to conduct a search without first notifying the subject of the search. After 9/11, law enforcement insisted that this measure was necessary to investigate and prevent future terrorist attacks “without tipping off the terrorists.”

On Tuesday, the D.C. Council unanimously endorsed a bill that aims to seriously reform the practice of civil asset forfeiture by the Metropolitan Police Department. The second and final vote on the measure will take place December 2.

The Institute for Justice is leading a class-action lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia and its’ civil forfeiture practices. This litigation comes in light of the city seizing a family’s home because unbeknownst to the parents, their son made a drug deal on the property worth $40.

This is still America, right? We still have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, correct? Lately, it sure doesn’t seem like it. It seems like we are constantly hearing new stories of our rights being under attack here in America. This week, it’s the Fourth Amendment which is being systematically destroyed.