[Dukie]

Perhaps you meant to say judicial action. IMHO Amendment 4 cannot be construed to pertain only to the executive since it references warrants which are issued by the judiciary. Under the reasoning of the last sentence in your post :the 4th amendment is only a prohibition on arbitrary executive action, not legislative acts. one gets into a loop where checks and balances are bypassed , surely contrary to the intent of the framers.

[Dukie]

I must leave for awhile, please continue & thanks for your comments.

[inquest]

Yes, you're right. It protects against judicial and executive action - the judicial from issuing warrants for the wrong reason, and the executive from arbitrarily searching without warrants at all, or at least without probable cause, in cases where there's no time to consult a judge.

But my point is that when the executive branch is carrying out acts of legislation - such as tax inspection - it may not violate the "unreasonable search" standard, as the founders intended it to mean.