Statement of Facts
The Government alleges that the Defendant, Austin Heim, committed drug-related federal offenses. The Government believed the Defendant was using email in furtherance of these activities. It obtained a court order requiring Cornell University, the provider of the Defendant’s email account, to provide them the contents of the account. The Defendant filled a motion to suppress these emails at trial. The Defendant argues he has a right to privacy in his emails. He argues that the Government’s ‘warrantless search’ breached his rights under the Fourth Amendment.
Questions
1. Under the Fourth Amendment, did Mr. Heim have a right to privacy in his emails?
2. Should the court grant Mr. Heim’s motion to suppress his emails?
Introduction
Applying the standard proposed in Katz v. United States,1 the court must grant the Defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence obtained from his emails. By neither publicly disclosing his emails nor the password used to restrict access to them, the Defendant demonstrated a reasonable expectation of privacy. Society supports this expectation, using email widely for private purposes and expecting them to remain private. Therefore, under Katz2 the Fourth Amendment protected the Defendant’s emails.3 Since the Government’s search lacked the judicial oversight required to lawfully infringe upon the Fourth Amendment,4 it violated the Defendant’s rights.5 Thus, the court must grant his motion.
Discussion & Analysis of Legal standards
To understand why the standard applied in Katz6 is the most suitable for answering the questions of this motion, its alternatives must be considered. Beside Katz, Olmstead v. United States7 and Kyllo v. United States8 stand as pivotal cases that dealt with the...
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...omparable mediums. As with the postal system, the user entrusts their message to a third–party, expecting the privacy of their message not to be breached. Further, while email is not stored in a person’s mailbox on their property, its storage on a third party’s server is no different from using a PO Box to receive mail. Society expects that emails will remain private unless deliberately disclosed. For these reasons, Mr. Heim meets the second condition of the standard. Thus, Mr. Heim had a right to privacy in his emails under the Fourth Amendment.
Given then that the Government obtained Mr. Heim’s emails with a court order and not a warrant based on a showing of probable cause as is required,22 the Government violated Mr. Heim’s rights to privacy with their search. Therefore, his motion must be granted and the emails obtained this way suppressed as evidence at trial.
Justice Harlan’s reasonable expectations test in Katz vs. United States (1967) considers whether a person has an “actual (subjective) expectation of privacy” and if so, whether such expectation is one that “society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’” (Solove and Schwartz 99) If there is no expectation of privacy, there is no search and no seizure (reasonable, or not), and hence no Fourth Amendment issue. Likewise, we must first ascertain whether a search took place. A few questions from a police officer, a frisk, or the taking of blood samples do not constitute a search. (Solove and Schwartz 83; 86) Likewise, the plain view doctrine establishes that objects knowingly exhibited in a public area, in plain view for police to see, do not
The case State v. Snowden is an appeal by the defendant were the defendant pleaded guilty to an evidence charging Raymond Alien Snowden with the crime of murder of first degree. The trial of the defendant was represented by the district Court, 3rd Judicial District, Ada County, were Snowden entered judgment and sentenced of death but he appealed. Snowed was at a bar in the evening drinking and playing pool in a Boise pool room, he and other person visited another club near the one where they were playing pool, nearby Garden city. That same day Snowden and his friend visited several bars also drinking, at the end they stop at HiHo club. That same bar he met and starts having a conversation to this lady Cora Lucyle Dean, they start dancing and having a time together and they left together, while they were walking they start arguing in the street, because she wanted him to find her a cab and take her to back to Boise, but he said that he shouldn’t be paying her fare.
...ing this type of case. If the District Court Judgement is affirmed it is possible that other technological advances such as satellite photography and video will invade the privacy of Americans.
“NEW YORK TIMES v. UNITED STATES.” The Oyez Project. llT Chicago-Kent College Of Law, n.d. Web. 5 Dec. 2013.
"Schenck v. United States. Baer v. Same.." LII. Cornell University Law school, n.d. Web. 6 Jan. 2014. .
3. Does the enforcement of the subpoena guarantee the right of the accused according to the 5th and 6th Amendments?
Jost, Kenneth. "The Federal Judiciary." CQ Researcher 8.10 (1998). CQ Researcher. SAGE Publications. Web. 01 Mar. 2011. .
Oct 1993. Retrieved November 18, 2010. Vol. 79. 134 pages (Document ID: 0747-0088) Published by American Bar Association
Remy, Richard C., Gary E. Clayton, and John J. Patrick. "Supreme Court Cases." Civics Today. Columbus, Ohio: Glencoe, 2008. 796. Print.
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”(Benjamin Franklin). Privacy is considered a civil liberty issue. It reflects the American fundamental values such as civil liberties, limited government, and individualism. It covers the whole range of civil liberties spectrum and it holds every aspect of our life. It plays a major role on our daily lives and it is also a main structure in the future of democratic political system (Wemmer, 2012.) Privacy has evolved overtime, privacy can be interpreted from the First ,Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Fourteenth Amendments in the Constitution; however Americans don’t consider the importance of privacy until cases such as Griswold v. Connecticut (381 U.S. 479, 1965), Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113, 1973), Mapp v. Ohio (367 U.S. 643, 1961) are brought to the court.
Hall, Kermit L, eds. The Oxford guide to United States Supreme Court decisions New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
The Fourth Amendment protects tangible privacy but how does it apply to the intangible internet. The founding fathers had to create a law that could apply to future societies. As it would be for anyone to attempt to foresee the future the Founding Fathers had to use a different strategy flexibility. But just how much flexibility does the Constitution allow?
Columbia Law Review, 104, 1-20. doi:10.2307/4099343. Reynolds, S. (2009). The 'Standard'. An interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Former Vice President Al Gore addressed the topic of Internet privacy and pointed out that “privacy is a basic American value […] in the Information Age and in every age […] and it must be protected” (qtd. in Masci). Senior researcher David Masci states that the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights indirectly implies the right of privacy “when it prohibits what it terms ‘unreasonable’ search and seizure” (Masci 183, 184). Yet, the usage of Internet, the part of nearly everyone’s day life that has increased tremendously over the past two decades, does not have any laws that would protect the
In September 25, 1789, the First Amendment protects people’s privacy of beliefs without government intrusion. The Fourth Amendment protects one’s person and possessions from unreasonable searches and seizures. On February 1, 1886 in Boyd v. U.S. Supreme Court recognized the protection of privacy interests under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. In the 1890s, the legal concept of pr...