The Supreme Court's view of the fourth amendment has changed substantially. Ten or 20 years ago, the Court developed inflexible prophylactic rules to guard against police abuse. The Court felt that young, poor, or black suspects were not fairly dealt with by local police or State courts. Today, the Court is far more confident in the police and in State judiciary. Thus, it has moved away from the warrant theory toward flexible standards. Underlying this move is the belief that police can be trusted with broad standards. If abuses occur, State courts can be trusted to correct them. This change is illustrated by a case in which the Court approved a warrantless seizure of a balloon filled with heroin from a car stopped at license checkpoint. The issue of container searches remains a problem. Containers do not fit comfortably into the Court-drawn dichotomy between private places and public places, vehicles, and objects in plain view. Basic principles such as requiring warrants for home searches and probable cause for arrests have been preserved by the current Court. A total of 141 footnotes are provided.