And the courts have decided that that protection will take the form of the exclusionary rule, blocking illegally seized evidence from any resultant prosecution. If, however, the illegal seizure is undertaken by a private citizen, acting on her own, the judicial remedy of exclusion of the evidence is not available. When the government engages in the illegality, the courts are intimately tied to the constitutional violation. But there is always a remedy at law. A law suit in tort.
Tort law is the area of law that defines the rights of citizens with respect to one another.
If one citizen wrongs another, tort law provides a remedy, usually compensatory money damages, sometimes punitive money damages. The problem with this private remedy in tort is that the client doesn't want money damages, the client wants the evidence suppressed. In other words, if a private citizen is pursuing a private interest, the appropriate remedy at law for any tortious conduct, including illegal search and seizure, is a civil suit for damages. This remedy is inadequate from the defendant's perspective, if the result of the illegal search and seizure is a criminal prosecution, because money damages will not prevent conviction. J.W. Peltason, Understanding the Constitution, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, Ninth Edition, 1982.