Katz v. United States

Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), is a United States Supreme Court
case discussing the nature of the “right to privacy” and the legal definition of a “search.” The Court’s ruling adjusted
previous interpretations of the unreasonable search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment to count immaterial intrusion with technology as a search,
overruling Olmstead v. United States and Goldman v. United States. Katz also extended Fourth Amendment
protection to all areas where a person has a “reasonable expectation of privacy”.

Facts

Charles Katz used a public pay phone booth to transmit illegal gambling wagers from Los Angeles to Miami and Boston.
Unbeknownst to Katz, the FBI was recording his conversations via an electronic eavesdropping device attached
to the exterior of the phone booth. Katz was convicted based on these
recordings. He challenged his conviction, arguing that the recordings were
obtained in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The Court of Appeals sided with the FBI because there was
no physical intrusion into the phone booth itself. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Constitutional issues of the case

• Does the right to privacy extend to telephone booths
  and other public places?
• Is a physical intrusion necessary to constitute a search?

Ruling

• “The Government’s activities in electronically listening to and recording
  the petitioner’s words violated the privacy upon which he justifiably relied
  while using the telephone booth and thus constituted a ‘search and seizure’
  within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” – Justice Stewart ^[1]
• Regardless of the location, a conversation is protected from unreasonable
  search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment if it is made with a “reasonable
  expectation of privacy”.
• Wiretapping counts as a search (physical intrusion is not necessary).

Decision and rationale

The Court ruled 7 – 1 in favor of Katz, with Justice Black in dissent.
Justice Marshall did not participate in the vote. Writing for the majority, Justice Stewart wrote,
“One who occupies [a telephone booth], shuts the door behind him, and pays the
toll that permits him to place a call is surely entitled to assume that the
words he utters into the mouthpiece will not be broadcast to the world.” ^[2] Certain details,
such as shutting the door on the telephone booth, help determine if a person
intends for a conversation to be private. Thus, private conversations can be
made in public areas.

Justice Harlan’s Concurring opinion summarizes the essential holdings of the majority: “(a) that an enclosed
telephone booth is an area where, like a home, and unlike a field, a person has
a constitutionally protected reasonable expectation of privacy; (b) that
electronic as well as physical intrusion into a place that is in this sense
private may constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment; and (c) that an
invasion of a constitutionally protected area by federal authorities is, as the
Court has long held, presumptively unreasonable in the absence of a search
warrant.” ^[3]

The Katz case made government wiretapping by both state and federal
authorities subject to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirements.^[4]

Justice Harlan’s concurrence

In a concurring opinion, Justice Harlan built upon the foundations of the
majority opinion and formulated the “reasonable suspicion” test for determining
whether government activity constitutes a search. Harlan’s test, not the
majority opinion, is the most common formulation cited by courts. Later, this
test was arranged into a two prong test for determining the existence of
privacy: If (1) the individual “has exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation
of privacy,” and (2) society is prepared to recognize that this expectation
is (objectively) reasonable, then there is a right of privacy in the given
circumstance.^[5] This test was adopted by the majority in Smith v. Maryland.

Justice Black’s dissent

In his dissent, Justice Hugo Black argued that the Fourth Amendment, as a whole, was only meant to
protect “things” from physical search and seizure; it was not meant to protect
personal privacy. Additionally, Black argued that the modern act of wiretapping
was analogous to the act of eavesdropping, which was around even when the Bill
of Rights was drafted. Black concluded that if the drafters of the Fourth
Amendment had meant for it to protect against eavesdropping they would have
included the proper language.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katz_v._United_States