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Private looking or search subject to the Fourth Amendment?
In considering whether conduct of a private citizen is subject to the Fourth Amendment, our court considers “whether the government had knowledge of and acquiesced in the intrusive conduct; whether the citizen intended to assist law enforcement agents or instead acted to further his own purposes; and whether the citizen acted at the government’s request.” United States v. Smith, 383 F.3d 700, 705 (8th Cir. 2004). When the actor alleged to have conducted an unlawful search is a government employee, the second factor is particularly important. In a leading decision, for example, the Ninth Circuit concluded that “for the conduct of a governmental party to be subject to the fourth amendment, the governmental party engaging in that conduct must have acted with the intent to assist the government in its investigatory or administrative purposes and not for an independent purpose.”
United States v. Attson, 900 F.2d 1427, 1433 (9th Cir. 1990).