Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, on the matter of whether wiretapping of private telephone conversations, conducted by federal agents without a search warrant with recordings subsequently used as evidence, constituted a violation of the target’s rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that the constitutional rights of a wiretapping target have not been violated. In an influential dissent, Justice Louis Brandeis stated that, "[The Founding Fathers] conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone – the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment." This decision was overturned by Katz v. United States in 1967.
Background
Seizure of evidence Until 1914, the American judicial system largely followed the precepts of English common law on matters pertaining to the validity of introducing evidence in criminal trials. In most cases, the general philosophy was that the process to obtain the evidence had little to do with its admissibility in court. The only limiting factor was that police agents could not break the law when seizing the evidence. In 1914, in the landmark case Weeks v. United States, the Supreme Court held unanimously that illegal seizure of items from a private residence was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, and established the exclusionary rule that prohibits admission of illegally obtained evidence in federal courts. Because the Bill of Rights did not at the time extend to the states, such a prohibition applied only to federal agents and covered only federal trials. It was not until the Supreme Court ruling in Mapp v. Ohio (1961) that the exclusionary rule was extended to state law enforcement officers as well.
Olmstead's complaint The Olmstead case included several petitioners, one of whom was Roy Olmstead, who challenged their criminal convictions, arguing that the use of evidence obtained from wiretapped private telephone conversations amounted to a violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. The petitioners were convicted in the mid-1920s for conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act by unlawfully possessing, transporting, and selling alcohol. The evidence provided by the wiretapped telephone conversations disclosed "a conspiracy of amazing magnitude" to engage in bootlegging, involving the employment of some fifty persons; with the use of sea vessels for transportation, an underground storage facility in Seattle, and the maintenance of a central office fully equipped with executives, bookkeepers, salesmen, and an attorney. Olmstead was the general manager of this bootlegging operation. The information that led to the conspiracy charges was largely obtained by four federal Prohibition officers who were able to intercept messages on his and other conspirators' telephones. No laws were violated in installing the wiretapping equipment, as the officers did not trespass upon either the homes or the offices of the defendants; instead, the equipment was placed in the streets near the houses and in the basement of their office building. The wiretapping went on for several months, and the records revealed significant details on the business transactions of the petitioners and their employees. Stenographic notes were made of the conversations, and their accuracy was affirmed by government witnesses. Olmstead and the others were convicted on their criminal charges in Washington State in 1925 and sentenced to prison terms. They appealed their convictions with an argument of Constitutional violations; their first attempt at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was unsuccessful. That decision was then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Opinion of the court Chief Justice William Howard Taft delivered the Opinion of the Court. Taft examined "perhaps the most important" precedent, Weeks v. United States, which involved a conviction for using the mail to transport lottery tickets. Taft wrote that per this precedent, the Fourth Amendment forbade the introduction of evidence in court if it had been obtained in violation of the amendment. This interpretation complies with the historical purpose of the Fourth Amendment, as it was intended to prevent the use of governmental force to search and seize a citizen’s personal property and effects. However, Taft held that the United States did not consider telephone conversations to be protected as much as mailed and sealed letters: "The amendment does not forbid what was done here. There was no searching. There was no seizure. The evidence was secured by the use of the sense of hearing and that only. There was no entry of the houses or offices of the defendants." A search and seizure needed to occur physically on the defendants' premises; wiretapping did not because it took place on a publicly available telephone network that people used voluntarily. Taft pointed out that one can talk with another at a great distance via telephone, and suggested that, because the connecting wires were not in the petitioners’ houses or offices, they could not be subjected to the protections of the Fourth Amendment. Taft suggested that Congress may extend such protections to telephone conversations by passing legislation that would prohibit their use in federal criminal trials. Until such legislation is passed, however, "the courts may not adopt such a policy by attributing an enlarged and unusual meaning to the Fourth Amendment," as there are no precedents that permit the Fourth Amendment to apply as a viable defense in cases where there had been no official search and seizure of the person, his papers, tangible material effects, or an actual physical invasion of property. Taft concluded that such wiretapping as occurred in this case did not amount to a search or seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
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