Monthly Archives: February 2014

My latest piece, “How Privacy Became Illegal,” was just published this morning at PJ Media. Here’s a teaser:

“In his influential dissent in Olmstead v. United States, Supreme Court Justice Brandeis wrote:

[E]very unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

“Brandeis was the first in a decades-long line of justices who rejected the idea that whether a “search” has occurred depends on whether there was a physical trespass onto something protected by the Fourth Amendment (our “persons, houses, papers, and effects”).

“The trend culminated in what is now known as the “reasonable expectation of privacy” test from Katz v. United States. As of Katz, a Fourth Amendment search takes place whenever the government violates an actual expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable, whether or not there is a physical trespass.

“While the doctrine at first seemed to offer us more privacy protection than we had under the “trespass doctrine,” things quickly changed. …”

Read more here, and please comment, like and share if you enjoy it!

Also, if you haven’t yet, listen to my interview with Ladar Levison, founder of Lavabit (Edward Snowden’s former email service provider).

Finally, if you want to follow my work on privacy issues, “like” my Legalize Privacy page on Facebook.