330
Opinion of the Court
395, 713 N. E. 2d 93 (1999), and the Illinois Supreme Court denied the State's petition for leave to appeal, 185 Ill. 2d 651, 720 N. E. 2d 1101 (1999). We granted certiorari to determine whether the Fourth Amendment prohibits the kind of temporary seizure at issue here.
II
A
The Fourth Amendment says that the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." U. S. Const., Amdt. 4. Its "central requirement" is one of reasonableness. See Texas v. Brown, 460 U. S. 730, 739 (1983). In order to enforce that requirement, this Court has interpreted the Amendment as establishing rules and presumptions designed to control conduct of law enforcement officers that may significantly intrude upon privacy interests. Sometimes those rules require warrants. We have said, for example, that in "the ordinary case," seizures of personal property are "unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment," without more, "unless . . . accomplished pursuant to a judicial warrant," issued by a neutral magistrate after finding probable cause. United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696, 701 (1983).
We nonetheless have made it clear that there are exceptions to the warrant requirement. When faced with special law enforcement needs, diminished expectations of privacy, minimal intrusions, or the like, the Court has found that certain general, or individual, circumstances may render a warrantless search or seizure reasonable. See, e. g., Pennsylvania v. Labron, 518 U. S. 938, 940-941 (1996) (per curiam) (search of automobile supported by probable cause); Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U. S. 444, 455 (1990) (suspicionless stops at drunk driver checkpoint); United States v. Place, supra, at 706 (temporary seizure of luggage based on reasonable suspicion); Michigan v.
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