The right against unreasonable searches and seizures is limited to criminal suspects. Inspection and regulatory searches ordinarily require a lower standard of reasonableness than searches for evidence. Inventory searches are most commonly made of briefcases. The objective basis for inventory searches consists of following routine procedures in compiling the inventory. The Supreme Court has ruled that inventory searches are not Fourth Amendment searches.
Border searches are reasonable because they occur at the border.
The courts have declared airport inspections of persons and luggage boarding airplanes to be searches and therefore protected by the Fourth Amendment. According to the Supreme Court, the Fourth Amendment protects prisoners from malicious seizure of purely personal items. Probationers and parolees have diminished Fourth Amendment rights. The doctrine of in loco parentis applies to college and university students who are not minors. According to the court in Piazzola v. Watkins , involving the search for marijuana in the dormitory rooms of a college, administrators may never enter students' rooms for any purpose without probable cause.