|
The petitioners were convicted in a conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act (Title 27
U.S.C.). Olmstead was the leader of the group.
The question was raised whether the use of evidence of private telephone conversations between the
defendants and others, intercepted by means of wire tapping, amounted to an unlawful search and seizure
violating the Fourth and Fifth
Amendments. The Court decided that the wire tapping did not violate the Fourth Amendment and therefore
did not violate the Fifth Amendment.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Louis D. Brandeis stated, “Experience should teach us to be most
on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are
naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to
liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
However, Justice Brandeis was later vindicated. The case was over turned in Katz
vs. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), a similar case about wire tapping.
Full Text: Olmstead vs. United
States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928) |