| United States v. U.S. District Court |
Supreme Court of the United States Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
| Argued February 24, 1972
Decided June 19, 1972 February 24 is the 55th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ...
1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year that started on a Saturday. ...
June 19 is the 170th day of the year (171st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 195 days remaining. ...
1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year that started on a Saturday. ...
| | Full case name: | United States of America v. U.S. District Court | | Citations: | 407 U.S. 297 | | Prior history: | | Subsequent history: | | | | Holding | | The Court held government officials were obligated to obtain a warrant before beginning electronic surveillance even if domestic security issues were involved. The "inherent vagueness of the domestic security concept" and the potential for abusing it to quell political dissent made the Fourth Amendment protections especially important when the government engaged in spying on its own citizens. | | Court membership | | | | Case opinions | | Majority by: Powell | | Joined by: Burger, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, White, Marshall, Blackmun | | Recused: Rehnquist | | | Laws applied | United States v. U.S. District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972), was a United States Supreme Court decision Official portrait of Warren Burger, 1971. ...
Douglas William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898 - January 19, 1980) was a United States Supreme Court Associate Justice. ...
William J. Brennan, official portrait, 1976. ...
Justice Potter Stewart Potter Stewart (January 23, 1915 - December 7, 1985) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. ...
Byron White Byron Raymond White (June 8, 1917 – April 15, 2002) won fame both as a speedy running back and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ...
Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American jurist and the first African American to serve on the United States Supreme Court. ...
Justice Harry Blackmun Harry Andrew Blackmun (November 12, 1908 – March 4, 1999) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994. ...
Official portrait of Justice Powell, 1976. ...
William Hubbs Rehnquist (October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American lawyer, jurist and political figure, who served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1972 until 1986, and as the 16th Chief Justice of the United States from 1986 until his death...
1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year that started on a Saturday. ...
The Supreme Court of the United States is the supreme court in the United States. ...
Opinion -
Associate (later Chief) Justice William Rehnquist recused himself, and did not participate in the trial. Associate Justices of the United States Supreme Court are the members of that court other than the Chief Justice. ...
Official portrait of Justice Powell, 1976. ...
Associate Justices of the United States Supreme Court are the members of that court other than the Chief Justice. ...
Douglas William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898 - January 19, 1980) was a United States Supreme Court Associate Justice. ...
William J. Brennan, official portrait, 1976. ...
Justice Potter Stewart Potter Stewart (January 23, 1915 - December 7, 1985) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. ...
Byron White Byron Raymond White (June 8, 1917 – April 15, 2002) won fame both as a speedy running back and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ...
Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American jurist and the first African American to serve on the United States Supreme Court. ...
Justice Harry Blackmun Harry Andrew Blackmun (November 12, 1908 – March 4, 1999) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994. ...
In many countries, especially common law countries such as Canada and the United States the Chief Justice is the name for the presiding officer on a senior court such as the United States Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Canada, the Supreme Court of New Zealand, the Supreme Court of...
Official portrait of Warren Burger, 1971. ...
William Hubbs Rehnquist (October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American lawyer, jurist and political figure, who served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1972 until 1986, and as the 16th Chief Justice of the United States from 1986 until his death...
The case
Quotes - The price of lawful public dissent must not be a dread of subjection to an unchecked surveillance power. Nor must the fear of unauthorized official eavesdropping deter vigorous citizen dissent and discussion of Government action in private conversation. For private dissent, no less than open public discourse, is essential to our free society. — Lewis Powell, writing for the Majority.
- "As I read it - and this is my fear - we are saying that the President, on his motion, could declare - name your favorite poison - draft dodgers, Black Muslims, the Ku Klux Klan, or civil rights activists to be a clear and present danger to the structure or existence of the Government." — Senator Hart, quoted by Lewis Powell, writing for the Majority.
- History abundantly documents the tendency of Government - however benevolent and benign its motives - to view with suspicion those who most fervently dispute its policies. Fourth Amendment protections become the more necessary when the targets of official surveillance may be those suspected of unorthodoxy in their political beliefs. The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect "domestic security." Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent. — Lewis Powell, writing for the Majority.
- This is an important phase in the campaign of the police and intelligence agencies to obtain exemptions from the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment. For, due to the clandestine nature of electronic eaves-dropping, the need is acute for placing on the Government the heavy burden to show that "exigencies of the situation [make its] course imperative." Other abuses, such as the search incident to arrest, have been partly deterred by the threat of damage actions against offending officers, the risk of adverse publicity, or the possibility of reform through the political process. These latter safeguards, however, are ineffective against lawless wiretapping and "bugging" of which their victims are totally unaware. Moreover, even the risk of exclusion of tainted evidence would here appear to be of negligible deterrent value inasmuch as the United States frankly concedes that the primary purpose of these searches is to fortify its intelligence collage rather than to accumulate evidence to support indictments and convictions. If the Warrant Clause were held inapplicable here, then the federal intelligence machine would literally enjoy unchecked discretion. — William O. Douglas, in a concurring opinion.
- Here, federal agents wish to rummage for months on end through every conversation, no matter how intimate or personal, carried over selected telephone lines, simply to seize those few utterances which may add to their sense of the pulse of a domestic underground. — William O. Douglas, in a concurring opinion.
- We are told that one national security wiretap lasted for 14 months and monitored over 900 conversations. Senator Edward Kennedy found recently that "warrantless devices accounted for an average of 78 to 209 days of listening per device, as compared with a 13-day per device average for those devices installed under court order." He concluded that the Government's revelations posed "the frightening possibility that the conversations of untold thousands of citizens of this country are being monitored on secret devices which no judge has authorized and which may remain in operation for months and perhaps years at a time." Even the most innocent and random caller who uses or telephones into a tapped line can become a flagged number in the Government's data bank. — William O. Douglas, in a concurring opinion. 4.228.213.1634.228.213.163
Official portrait of Justice Powell, 1976. ...
Philip Aloysius Hart (December 10, 1912–December 26, 1976) was a Democratic senator from Michigan. ...
Official portrait of Justice Powell, 1976. ...
Official portrait of Justice Powell, 1976. ...
Douglas William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898 - January 19, 1980) was a United States Supreme Court Associate Justice. ...
Douglas William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898 - January 19, 1980) was a United States Supreme Court Associate Justice. ...
Douglas William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898 - January 19, 1980) was a United States Supreme Court Associate Justice. ...
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