4th Amendment
A Primer on Domestic Spying
A pernicious piece of legislation is slowly and silently making its way through Congress. It is a renewal of Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act of 2001 has three sections that are scheduled to expire on March 15. One of those sections is the infamous 215,...
Federal Appeals Court: Warrantless Data Collection Is Constitutional
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion that domestic data gobbled up by the National Security Agency (NSA) under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and PRISM are are not covered by the Fourth Amendment and their collection...
Applying the Fourth Amendment’s Original Meaning to Cell Phones and Heat Sensors
How should the Fourth Amendmentโs original meaning be applied to modern technology that was not in existence at the time of the Amendmentโs enactment? Many commentators believe this type of question problematic to answer. As Justice Alito quipped some years ago at...
Originalism, the Fourth Amendment, and New Technology
One of the important issues for originalism is whether it can be applied to new circumstances that were not envisioned at the time of the original Constitution. Perhaps this issue is encountered most often when considering the application of the Fourth Amendment to...