Conspiracy Against National Prohibition: Olmstead vs. United States
You are looking for the famous Dissenting Opinion by the great Justice Louis Brandeis in the infamous wiretapping Supreme Court case Olmstead v US (1928).
To find this dissenting opinion go to the case here (https://www(dot)law(dot)cornell(dot)edu/supremecourt/text/277/438 on the Cornell Law School site. Cases this old are also available online through the Oyez Project (run by Northwestern University), FindLaw, or the Supreme Court’s own database. *** DO NOT USE ANY OTHER SOURCES BUT THESE SOURCES***
Your assignment is to,
1) scroll down to and read the Brandeis dissent from the Olmstead case, and
2) write an analytical essay concerning the overall message Brandeis is giving us in this dissent.
3) In your essay you should go beyond the facts of the case to get to the larger lessons Brandeis is offering concerning the Constitution and Civil Liberties in general.
Use quotes when citing passages from this Dissent. The length of your essay (not including the quoted material) should be at least 3 solid paragraphs of your own writing.
Olmstead vs United States (1928)
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Olmstead vs United States (1928)
Civil liberty and constitutional protection from power seizure and torture remain a significant concern in reinforcing law and constitutional practice. In the case of Olmstead in the Olmstead et al. v. United States, he is being convicted of conspiracy against national prohibition (Schultz & Vile, 2005). According to Olmstead's constitutional way of convictism, there should be evidence backing up this allegation before being executed and charged to be guilty of the conspiracy. The government, therefore, hired a private officer who does private investigation through wiretapping of the telephone line. The federal officer goes ahead to retrieve the recorded information as evidence. He produced a typewritten record which consisted of 775 typewritten pages (Schultz & Vile, 2005). However, the accused upon summon defends himself and nullifies the allegations as baseless
“True, the one is visible, the other invisible; the one is tangible, the other intangible; the one is sealed, and the other unsealed; but these are distinctions without a difference” (Schultz & Vile, 2005).
Olmstead’s case on national conspiracy considers a constitutional amendment that protects the individual from power...