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Page Number: 62.0

12 

CARPENTER v. UNITED STATES 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

(emphasis  added).    In  one  of  the  few  changes  made  to 
Madison’s  draft,  the  House  Committee  of  Eleven  changed 
“other  property”  to  “effects.”    See  House  Committee  of 
Eleven Report (July 28, 1789), in N. Cogan, The Complete
Bill of Rights 334 (2d ed. 2015).  This change might have
narrowed the Fourth Amendment by clarifying that it does 
not  protect  real  property  (other  than  houses).    See  Oliver 
v.  United  States,  466  U. S.  170,  177,  and  n. 7  (1984);  Da­
vies,  Recovering  the  Original  Fourth  Amendment,  98
Mich. L. Rev. 547, 709–714 (1999) (Davies).  Or the change 
might  have  broadened  the  Fourth  Amendment  by  clarify­
ing  that  it  protects  commercial  goods,  not  just  personal 
possessions.    See  Donahue  1301.    Or  it  might  have  done 
both.  Whatever  its  ultimate  effect,  the  change  reveals 
that the Founders understood the phrase “persons, houses, 
papers,  and  effects”  to  be  an  important  measure  of  the
Fourth Amendment’s overall scope.  See Davies 710.  The 
Katz  test,  however,  displaces  and  renders  that  phrase
entirely “superfluous.”  Jones, 565 U. S., at 405. 

D 

“[P]ersons, houses, papers, and effects” are not the only 

words  that  the  Katz  test  reads  out  of  the  Fourth  Amend­
ment.  The  Fourth  Amendment  specifies  that  the  people
have  a  right  to  be  secure  from  unreasonable  searches  of 
“their”  persons,  houses,  papers,  and  effects.    Although
phrased in the plural, “[t]he obvious meaning of [‘their’] is 
that each person has the right to be secure against unrea­
sonable  searches  and  seizures  in  his  own  person,  house, 
papers, and effects.”  Carter, supra, at 92 (opinion of Sca- 
lia,  J.);  see  also  District  of  Columbia  v.  Heller,  554  U. S. 
570, 579 (2008) (explaining that the Constitution uses the
plural  phrase  “the  people”  to  “refer  to  individual  rights,
not ‘collective’ rights”).  Stated differently, the word “their”
means,  at  the  very  least,  that  individuals  do  not  have
Fourth Amendment rights in someone else’s property.  See