Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
Page Number: 105.0

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

7 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

dered  by  these  cases  rested  in  part  on  the  government’s 
intrusion  upon  privacy.    But  the  framers  chose  not  to 
protect privacy in some ethereal way dependent on judicial 
intuitions.    They  chose  instead  to  protect  privacy  in  par-
ticular  places  and  things—“persons,  houses,  papers,  and
effects”—and  against  particular  threats—“unreasonable” 
governmental “searches and seizures.”  See Entick, supra,
at 1066 (“Papers are the owner’s goods and chattels; they 
are  his  dearest  property;  and  so  far  from  enduring  a  sei-
zure,  that  they  will  hardly  bear  an  inspection”);  see  also 
ante, at 1–21 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). 

Even taken on its own terms, Katz has never been suffi-
ciently justified.  In fact, we still don’t even know what its 
“reasonable expectation of privacy” test is.  Is it supposed
to  pose  an  empirical  question  (what  privacy  expectations
do people actually have) or a normative one (what expecta-
tions should they have)?  Either  way brings  problems.  If 
the  test  is  supposed  to  be  an  empirical  one,  it’s  unclear
why  judges  rather  than  legislators  should  conduct  it.
Legislators  are  responsive  to  their  constituents  and  have
institutional resources designed to help them discern and
enact  majoritarian  preferences. 
  Politically  insulated
judges  come  armed  with  only  the  attorneys’  briefs,  a  few 
law clerks, and their own idiosyncratic experiences.  They
are hardly the representative group you’d expect (or want) 
to be making empirical judgments for hundreds of millions
of  people.  Unsurprisingly,  too,  judicial  judgments  often
fail  to  reflect  public  views.    See  Slobogin  &  Schumacher, 
Reasonable  Expectations  of  Privacy  and  Autonomy  in 
Fourth Amendment Cases: An Empirical Look at “Under-
standings Recognized and Permitted by Society,” 42 Duke
L. J. 727, 732, 740–742 (1993).  Consider just one example. 
Our  cases  insist  that  the  seriousness  of  the  offense  being 
investigated  does  not  reduce  Fourth  Amendment  protec-
tion.  Mincey  v.  Arizona,  437  U. S.  385,  393–394  (1978). 
Yet scholars suggest that most people are more tolerant of