writ of assistance

If the tenants do not move voluntarily, the city can request a writ of assistance from the Rock County Courts to allow law enforcement to remove them from the property, Klimczyk said.

Open-ended “writs of assistance” gave authorities licence to search anything they liked, infuriating the colonists and inspiring the Fourth Amendment.

“Yet I have trouble telling what the difference is between a writ of assistance, a generalized warrant and a warrant that’s today being issued by President Obama that says ‘Verizon’ on it.”

It prohibits general search warrants such as were commonly used by the British authorities in the colonies prior to the outbreak of the Revolution and which were popularly known as "writs of assistance."

A writ of assistance was a general search-warrant, empowering the officer armed with it to enter, by force if necessary, any dwelling-house or warehouse where contraband goods were supposed to be stored or hidden.