Warrant systems, such as California's, also require that the items seized be brought to the judge who authorized the warrant rather than "disappearing" into the hands of the police and or prosecution. Thus search warrants can serve the purpose of controlling and limiting the range of the search and increase accountability for the items seized.
Beyond these practical ends, search warrants also, at least in the American constitutional tradition, serve to protect a core value, a core civil liberty. That is the protection of the individual from illegal interference from the powers of the state. In a clear case of "history repeating itself" one of the early and perhaps most famous of the English cases in this area was Entick versus Carrington in1763, which involved state officers who had raided many homes and other places in search of materials connected with John Wilkes' polemical pamphlets attacking not only governmental policies but the King himself.
The State and journalist seem to have always had an "uneasy" relationship. A search warrant system can serve to protect such civil liberties, as freedom of speech while clarifying the rights of the state to reasonable searches and seizures.
For a discussion of search warrant policy to make sense it is necessary to first discuss why Taiwan has a search warrant system at all. Once the ends are clarified then discussions of the means will proceed with more reason and less randomness.
Brian Kennedy is an attorney who writes and teaches on criminal justice and human rights issues.
RSS