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by Zigurd 3846 days ago
First, the Constitution as a whole is "addressed" to the government, not the people. That is, the Constitution tells the government what it may do. In the case of the IVth, it tells the government search powers are limited to those allowed by the Constitution.

If the Constitution is amended to say "Government officials may levitate" it does not confer the power to make gravity illegal.

Similarly, if encryption can build an uncrackable "safe" for your documents - moreover one that can be made invisible and deniable - government search powers are as limited by mathematics as they are by gravity. The only difference is that government officials don't actually expect to levitate.

That means when the people invent something that thwarts government power, there is nothing in the Constitution that says anything about that. Even less does it say "No, the people can't have that."