Smith v. Maryland,
442 U.S. 735Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...
(1979), was a case in which the
Supreme Court of the United StatesThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" of the Senate...
held that the installation and use of the
pen registerA pen register is an electronic device that records all numbers dialed from a particular telephone line. The term has come to include any device or program that performs similar functions to an original pen register, including programs monitoring Internet communications.The USA statutes governing...
was not a "
searchSearch and seizure is a legal procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems whereby police or other authorities and their agents, who suspect that a crime has been committed, do a search of a person's property and confiscate any relevant evidence to the crime.Most countries have...
" within the meaning of the
Fourth AmendmentThe Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures. It was ratified as a response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, which is a type of general search warrant, in the American Revolution...
, and hence no
warrantMost often, the term warrant refers to a specific type of authorization; a writ issued by a competent officer, usually a judge or magistrate, which commands an otherwise illegal act that would violate individual rights and affords the person executing the writ protection from damages if the act is...
was required.
The pen register was installed on telephone company property at the telephone company's central offices. In the Majority opinion, Justice Blackmun rejected the idea that the installation and use of a pen registry constitutes a violation of the "legitimate expectation of privacy" since the numbers would be available to and recorded by the phone company anyways.
In
Katz v. United StatesKatz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 was a United States Supreme Court decision that extended the Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure to protect individuals in a telephone booth from wiretaps by authorities without a warrant.-Facts:Charles Katz was convicted in...
(1967), the United States Supreme Court established its "reasonable expectation of privacy" test.
Smith v. Maryland,
442 U.S. 735Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...
(1979), was a case in which the
Supreme Court of the United StatesThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" of the Senate...
held that the installation and use of the
pen registerA pen register is an electronic device that records all numbers dialed from a particular telephone line. The term has come to include any device or program that performs similar functions to an original pen register, including programs monitoring Internet communications.The USA statutes governing...
was not a "
searchSearch and seizure is a legal procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems whereby police or other authorities and their agents, who suspect that a crime has been committed, do a search of a person's property and confiscate any relevant evidence to the crime.Most countries have...
" within the meaning of the
Fourth AmendmentThe Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures. It was ratified as a response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, which is a type of general search warrant, in the American Revolution...
, and hence no
warrantMost often, the term warrant refers to a specific type of authorization; a writ issued by a competent officer, usually a judge or magistrate, which commands an otherwise illegal act that would violate individual rights and affords the person executing the writ protection from damages if the act is...
was required.
The pen register was installed on telephone company property at the telephone company's central offices. In the Majority opinion, Justice Blackmun rejected the idea that the installation and use of a pen registry constitutes a violation of the "legitimate expectation of privacy" since the numbers would be available to and recorded by the phone company anyways.
Background
In
Katz v. United StatesKatz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 was a United States Supreme Court decision that extended the Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure to protect individuals in a telephone booth from wiretaps by authorities without a warrant.-Facts:Charles Katz was convicted in...
(1967), the United States Supreme Court established its "reasonable expectation of privacy" test. It overturned
Olmstead v. United StatesOlmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 , is a 1928 opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, in which the Court reviewed whether the use of wiretapped private telephone conversations, obtained by federal agents without judicial approval and subsequently used as evidence, constituted a...
and held that
wiretapTelephone tapping is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The telephone or wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitoring connection was an actual electrical tap on the telephone line...
s were
unconstitutionalConstitutionality is the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or guidelines set forth in the applicable constitution. When one of these directly violates the constitution it is unconstitutional...
searches, because there was a reasonable expectation that the communication would be
privatePrivacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
. The government was then required to get a
warrantMost often, the term warrant refers to a specific type of authorization; a writ issued by a competent officer, usually a judge or magistrate, which commands an otherwise illegal act that would violate individual rights and affords the person executing the writ protection from damages if the act is...
to execute a wiretap.
In Smith v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that a pen register is not a search because the "petitioner voluntarily conveyed numerical information to the telephone company." Since the
defendantA defendant or defender is any party who is required to answer the complaint of a plaintiff or pursuer in a civil lawsuit before a court, or any party who has been formally charged or accused of violating a criminal statute....
had disclosed the dialed numbers to the telephone company so they could connect his call, he did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the numbers he dialed. The court did not distinguish between disclosing the numbers to a human operator or just the automatic equipment used by the telephone company.
The Smith decision left pen registers completely outside
constitutionalThe Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America and the federal government of the United States...
protection. If there was to be any privacy protection, it would have to be enacted by Congress as statutory privacy law.