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A writ of assistance is often a court order to a police officer such as a sheriff to help enforce a decision of the court, for instance an eviction order. They were often issued, however, in very general terms so that they could be used to require any official to aid a customs officer to assist in anything related to customs, without naming any suspect or items sought.

This did much to annoy the citizens of New England when the writs were used around 1760 to combat smuggling (a favorite and profitable pastime) and that customs officers could use them indefinitely to search anyone's private properties for contraband without having to state a cause; further, the writs could be (and were) handed around from official to official, thus effectively giving any customs official the authority to search any property he felt like just because he felt like it.

It never was upheld in court that these writs indeed violated anyone's right to keep officers from your private property, but several people did try in court to argue that the writs did violate private property rights, in particular the right to not have one's property searched without cause. Yet rights do not depend on court decisions, so it is accurate to say that the writs of assistance violated the right against arbitrary search and seizure.

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