This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The subversion of the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights began with the beginning of the

Republic, protecting against the unreasonable search and seizures

by government and government's agents requires constant vigilance and an update to old ideas

about what constitutes our papers and effects.

Pulitzer Prize winning author David Schipler is author of the new book, The Rights of the People,

we spoke yesterday.

When courts look at the word effect in the Fourth Amendment, what should they be thinking about?

These days they should be thinking about every bit of personal, financial, medical information, whether it exists on paper or digitally.

And that's where the courts have been way behind the technological revolution.

They've always been behind actually.

You know, the Supreme Court ruled when a long distance telephone came in

that wiretap could be done without warrants because the voices were carried

outside your home and the Fourth Amendment applied only inside your home.

It was the kind of the trespass theory of the Fourth Amendment.

These days of course you cannot function in a modern world without much of your personal

information outside your home.

And the courts, I think, have not come to terms with this.

Neither has Congress.

You know, there is a concept in The concept is the reasonable expectation of privacy.

To what extent does someone have a reasonable expectation of privacy

...