On the Constitutional Implications of Privacy

On the Constitutional Implications of Privacy: Aside from a few state constitutions, namely California, Florida, and Montana, there is no explicit "right to privacy" in American constitutional law. Over time, however, there have been various judicial interpretations which have sought to mesh the concepts of privacy and constitutionality. One of the first examples of this involved an 1890 Harvard Law Review article titled "The Right to Privacy" by-then law firm partners Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis. Later in his career, Brandeis would become a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and explicate what was perhaps the greatest defense of privacy rights in Olmstead v. United States (1928). Yet apart from Brandeis, one might look to the Bill of Rights as an early source of privacy rights. There are two amendments in particular that speak implicitly to privacy rights, and they include Amendments IV and V. These amendments were at the heart of the Olmstead case, which involved a police wiretap of a suspected bootlegger's telephone line. Amendment IV protects American citizens from "unreasonable searches and seizures," while Amendment V claims "private property" cannot be taken for "public use" without "just compensation." Also, Amendment V protects "mental privacy" in that no American citizen can be forced to serve as a "witness against him/herself."