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An example will illustrate the point.  The Federal

Bureau of Investigation and Fidel Castro's police force

are both "law enforcement" agencies.  Both agencies share

general "truth-seeking" objectives.  Both seek to detect

and apprehend people who disobey the law.  The key differ-

ence between the two agencies is that the FBI, unlike

Castro's police force, must operate within a constitutional

framework of limited government.  In America, the truth-

seeking objective is subordinated to the higher objective

of safeguarding liberty and preventing tyranny.

That was clearly the thinking behind the Constitution.

As Professor Charles Reynard once observed,

There seems little doubt that the Fourth Amend-

ment's framers had at least two objectives in

mind as they approached their task.  First, they

clearly intended to prohibit the use of general

warrants and writs of assistance as means of law

enforcement; and second, in the fulfillment of

this end, they intended that the guilty should

be protected as well as the innocent.  In fact,

it is not too much to say that protection of the

guilty was a matter of particular concern.

[John Entick was] harrassed [sic] by general war-

rants because of [his] publication of seditious

libels; and the American colonists were similarly

harrassed [sic] by the writs of assistance in

connection with their smuggling activities in

violation of existing customs laws.87

Indeed, the first signer of the Declaration of

Independence, John Hancock, was one of America's most

prominent smugglers of uncustomed goods.88  Hancock and

many other early Americans were "lawbreakers" in the years

preceding the Revolutionary War.  The point is this: the

Framers of the Constitution were more interested in curb-

ing oppressive law enforcement tactics than they were in

enabling governmental authorities to ascertain "the truth."

Conclusion

The U.S. Constitution creates three separate branches

of government: legislative, executive, and judicial.  The

separation-of-powers principle requires each branch to

respect the constitutional responsibilities that have been

assigned to the other branches.

In America, the power to search is divided between

our executive and judicial branches.  That means executive