The 4 th Amendment to the Constitution explicitly prohibits law enforcement officers from conduct... more The 4 th Amendment to the Constitution explicitly prohibits law enforcement officers from conducting "unreasonable searches and seizures" without probable cause, long understood as a collection of facts that would lead a reasonable person to believe a crime is being or has been committed. But the Court did not address the question of whether information from anonymous sources can constitute probable cause until the middle of the 20 th century. In a line of cases spanning almost 40 years, the Court put a greater burden on police to show probable cause based on anonymous tips, even when supported by independent investigation, with a stringent two-prong standard known as the Aguilar-Spinelli test, only to remove that burden in Illinois v. Gates.
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