When can the government read your email or monitor your web surfing? When can the police search your phone or copy your computer files? In the United States, the answers come from the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and its ban on ''unreasonable searches and seizures.'' The Digital Fourth Amendment: Privacy and Policing in Our Online World takes the reader inside the legal world of how courts are interpreting the Fourth Amendment in the digital age. Computers, smartphones, and the Internet have transformed criminal investigations, and even a routine crime is likely to lead to digital evidence. But courts are struggling to apply old Fourth Amendment concepts to the new digital world. Mechanically applying old rules from physical investigations doesn''t make sense, as it often leads to dramatic expansions of government power just based on coincidences of computer design. Written by a prominent law professor whose scholarship has often been relied on by courts in the field, The Digital Fourth Amendment shows how judges must craft new rules for the new world of digital evidence. It explains the challenges courts confront as they translate old protections to a new technological world, bringing the reader up to date on the latest cases and rulings. Informed by legal history and the latest technology, this book gives courts a blueprint for legal change with clear rules for courts to adopt to restore our constitutional rights in the computer age.
Industry Reviews
Orin Kerr is the nation's leading expert on how to safeguard the Constitution's guarantee of individual rights in a world of technological change unimaginable to the Framers. Everyone from journalists to Supreme Court justices turn to Kerr for clear-eyed, even-handed analysis, and this thoughtful book shows why. The Digital Fourth Amendment is a call to action for the Supreme Court to protect the Constitution's guarantee of individual privacy. I expect
this incisive guide will be invaluable to the justices as they chart the path forward. - Robert Barnes, former Supreme Court reporter for The Washington Post
Orin Kerr is the law professor you wish you'd had-whether you're a lawyer or not. His case to update our search and seizure laws in the era of iPhones and Snapchat is an illuminating and fun ride for nerds of all stripes! - Sarah Isgur, ABC News legal analyst and host of Advisory Opinions
Kerr is the most thoughtful and thought-provoking thinker we have about the Fourth Amendment. In clear and accessible language for non-lawyers, Kerr explains the notoriously uneven road the Supreme Court has travelled, and offers lucid ways out of the thicket caused by the digital revolution resulting in our most personal information being in the hands of big tech companies. - Andrew Weissmann, MSNBC legal analyst and former General Counsel of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation
Ensuring that the law remains relevant in the face of rapidly changing technology is a complex and critically important topic-and this is especially true when it comes to the Fourth Amendment. In his insightful and nuanced new book, Orin Kerr, a preeminent scholar of this crucial constitutional provision, articulates a powerful, ultimately optimistic vision for maintaining the vitality of the Fourth Amendment in the digital age. - David Lat, founder of
Original Jurisdiction
"The final chapter on digital surveillance and data brokers and how they are able to act under the Fourth Amendment is a must read for any criminal law scholar and practitioner." -- J. M. Keller-Aschenbach, Choice
"In The Digital Fourth Amendment, Kerr illuminates the major Fourth Amendment cases of the past century in an engaging, story-first way. He clarifies the issues that today's judges are likely to face and explains them in a manner that readers with no prior knowledge of Fourth Amendment law can understand. His individual arguments are thoughtful and often compelling, and the breadth and depth of his knowledge of Fourth Amendment law is unparalleled.
The Digital Fourth Amendment offers an excellent overview of Fourth Amendment law in the modern world." -- Matthew Tokson, Lawfare
