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18 

CARPENTER v. UNITED STATES 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

Justice  Harlan,  four  years  after  penning  his  concurrence
in Katz, confessed that the test encouraged “the substitu­
tion  of  words  for  analysis.”  United  States  v.  White,  401 
U. S. 745, 786 (1971) (dissenting opinion).

After 50 years, it is still unclear what question the Katz 
test is even asking.  This Court has steadfastly declined to 
elaborate  the  relevant  considerations  or  identify  any 
meaningful  constraints.  See,  e.g.,  ante,  at  5  (“[N]o  single
rubric  definitively  resolves  which  expectations  of  privacy 
are  entitled  to  protection”);  O’Connor  v.  Ortega,  480  U. S. 
709, 715 (1987) (plurality opinion) (“We have no talisman 
that  determines  in  all  cases  those  privacy  expectations
that  society  is  prepared  to  accept  as  reasonable”);  Oliver, 
466 U. S., at 177 (“No single factor determines whether an
individual  legitimately  may  claim  under  the  Fourth 
Amendment  that  a  place  should  be  free  of  government 
intrusion”).

Justice  Harlan’s  original  formulation  of  the  Katz  test 
appears  to  ask  a  descriptive  question:  Whether  a  given 
expectation  of  privacy  is  “one  that  society  is  prepared  to 
recognize as ‘reasonable.’ ”  389 U. S., at 361.  As written, 
the Katz test turns on society’s actual, current views about
the reasonableness of various expectations of privacy. 

But  this  descriptive  understanding  presents  several 
problems.  For  starters,  it  is  easily  circumvented.    If,  for 
example, “the Government were suddenly to announce on 
nationwide  television  that  all  homes  henceforth  would  be 
subject to warrantless entry,” individuals could not realis­
tically expect privacy in their homes.  Smith, 442 U. S., at 
740, n. 5; see also Chemerinsky, Rediscovering Brandeis’s 

—————— 

James Madison Sees the Future and Rewrites the Fourth Amendment,
 
80  Notre  Dame  L.  Rev.  1451,  1500  (2005);  Rakas  v.  Illinois,  439  U. S.  

128, 165 (1978) (White, J., dissenting); Cloud, Rube Goldberg Meets the

Constitution:  The  Supreme  Court,  Technology,  and  the  Fourth
 
Amendment, 72 Miss. L. J. 5, 7 (2002).