Pondering Privacy
RECURRING PROBLEM for the Supreme Court Justices is applying the demands and prohibitions of the Constitution to technology developed many years after the Constitution was written—technology ever farther beyond the most fertile imaginings of the founding fathers. One of the most vexing such knots is delineating the limits of electronic surveillance. The Fourth Amendment guarantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” This ban clearly means that government agents can’t, without a court warrant, break into a house or office and search for suspicious documents or other incriminating evidence. But to what extent does the Fourth Amendment limit spying techniques capable of gathering information without ever breaching a physical barrier?
