Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-530.pdf
Page Number: 13

Cite as:  562 U. S. ____ (2011) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

protected  against  “public  disclosure”  of  patients’  informa-
tion, id., at 600–601.  This sort of “statutory or regulatory 
duty  to  avoid  unwarranted  disclosures”  of  “accumulated 
private data” was sufficient, in the Court’s view, to protect
a  privacy  interest  that  “arguably  ha[d]  its  roots  in  the 
Constitution.”  Id., at 605–606.  The Court thus concluded 
that  the  statute  did  not  violate  “any  right  or  liberty  pro-
tected by the Fourteenth Amendment.”  Id., at 606. 

Four months later, the Court referred again to a consti-
tutional  “interest  in  avoiding  disclosure.”    Nixon,  433 
U. S., at 457 (internal quotation marks omitted).  Former 
President  Nixon  brought  a  challenge  to  the  Presidential
Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, 88 Stat. 1695,
note  following  44  U. S. C.  §2111,  a  statute  that  required 
him  to  turn  over  his  presidential  papers  and  tape  re-
cordings  for  archival  review  and  screening.    433  U. S.,  at 
455–465.  In a section of the opinion entitled “Privacy,” the 
Court  addressed  a  combination  of  claims  that  the  review 
required  by  this  Act  violated  the  former  President’s
“Fourth  and  Fifth  Amendmen[t]”  rights.    Id.,  at  455,  and 
n. 18, 458–459.  The Court rejected those challenges after
concluding  that  the  Act  at  issue,  like  the  statute  in 
Whalen,  contained  protections  against  “undue  dissemina-
tion of private materials.”  433 U. S., at 458.  Indeed, the 
Court  observed  that  the  former  President’s  claim  was 
“weaker” than the one “found wanting . . . in Whalen,” as 
the  Government  was  required  to  return  immediately  all
“purely  private  papers  and  recordings”  identified  by  the 
archivists.  Id.,  at  458–459.  Citing  Fourth  Amendment 
precedent, the Court also stated that the public interest in 
preserving presidential papers outweighed any “legitimate
expectation  of  privacy”  that  the  former  President  may 
have enjoyed.  Id., at 458 (citing Katz v. United States, 389 
U. S.  347  (1967);  Camara  v.  Municipal  Court  of  City  and 
County  of  San  Francisco,  387  U. S.  523  (1967);  and  Terry