Cognitive Dissonance

[kate_nepveu]

So I'm taking a break from my present project by keeping current on jurisprudential developments, and in the Ninth Circuit's opinion in United States v. Gonzalez [8 page PDF], I read:

Gonzalez contends that a temporary zone of privacy was created when he was alone with Standifer. It is doubtless true that "the Fourth Amendment protects persons, not places." However, "the extent to which the Fourth Amendment protects people may depend upon where those people are." . . . Here, however, the defendant . . . chose to conduct his criminal activity in a public area.

Gonzalez would have us adopt a theory of the Fourth Amendment akin to J.K. Rowling's Invisibility Cloak, to create at will a shield impenetrable to law enforcement view even in the most public places. However, the fabric of the Fourth Amendment does not stretch that far. He did not have an expectation of privacy in the public mailroom that society would accept as reasonable.

It was . . . disconcerting.

*waves to ajhalluk, heidi8, and other legal types in the fandom, and goes back to what she was doing*

Comments

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I am vastly amused. Thank you for putting a smile on my face!

MKK

[kate_nepveu]

Yay! I bother to share this stuff in the hopes it will amuse someone else, after all.

[snippy]

I am a legal secretary. Some years back I was typing away at my desk when one of the partners walked up and asked me "who was that who said that thing about technology being indistinguishable from magic?" And lo and behold, Clarke's Third Law is a part of the record in that case.

[kate_nepveu]

Cool. I'm thinking that the odds are, in this case, that the judge came up with the metaphor, rather than the attorney, because of the style of the opinion overall; it'll be some time yet before I think I feel comfortable enough to make arguments like that, at least on paper.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

Good one.