Street Law Mini-Project
Project Reflection
For this project we studied our 4th Amendment rights. We were given the essential question of “How do we balance the need for personal privacy (liberty) with the need to keep a safe, orderly, and just {fair} society?” To answer this question we first started by looking at different documents that explained the 4th Amendment, what it meant, and some of the terms that were new and unclear such as reasonable suspicion and probable cause. We also learned about useful techniques to use when dealing/talking to the cops. We then went over different scenarios and determined whether we believed that their rights were violated or not. Finally, each student (or groups of students) created a mini-project that went further into depth about one of the topics that we covered in the 4th amendment.
For my project I chose to focus on the search and seizure of smartphones in school and create a flowchart with some of my peers. We decided to do this topic because it is highly relevant to loads of people/students including us. Many students get their phones confiscated but are unaware that searching the phone without reasonable suspicion is against their rights. Or that the reasonable suspicion to search their phones is a grey area that bends depending on the case and how everything happened. I wanted to figure out the different scenarios and try to clear up some of the grey area with reasonable suspicion and to help students understand what is actually happening.
For my project I chose to focus on the search and seizure of smartphones in school and create a flowchart with some of my peers. We decided to do this topic because it is highly relevant to loads of people/students including us. Many students get their phones confiscated but are unaware that searching the phone without reasonable suspicion is against their rights. Or that the reasonable suspicion to search their phones is a grey area that bends depending on the case and how everything happened. I wanted to figure out the different scenarios and try to clear up some of the grey area with reasonable suspicion and to help students understand what is actually happening.