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692

UNITED STATES v. BALSYS

Opinion of the Court

these values were reliable guides to the actual scope of pro-
tection under the Clause, they would be seen to demand a
very high degree of protection indeed: “inviolability” is, after
all, an uncompromising term, and we know as well from
Fourth Amendment law as from a layman’s common sense
that breaches of privacy are complete at the moment of illicit
intrusion, whatever use may or may not later be made of
their fruits. See United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494
U. S. 259, 264 (1990) (citing United States v. Calandra, 414
U. S. 338, 354 (1974); United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897,
906 (1984)).

The Fifth Amendment tradition, however, offers no such
If the Government is ready to provide
degree of protection.
the requisite use and derivative use immunity, see Kastigar,
406 U. S., at 453; see also Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U. S. 70,
84 (1973), the protection goes no further: no violation of per-
sonality is recognized and no claim of privilege will avail.13
One might reply that the choice of the word “inviolability”
was just unfortunate; while testimonial integrity may not be
inviolable, it is sufﬁciently served by requiring the Govern-
ment to pay a price in the form of use (and derivative use)
immunity before a refusal to testify will be overruled. But
that answer overlooks the fact that when a witness’s re-
sponse will raise no fear of criminal penalty, there is no pro-
tection for testimonial privacy at all. See United States v.
Ward, 448 U. S. 242, 248–255 (1980).

Thus, what we ﬁnd in practice is not the protection of per-
sonal testimonial inviolability, but a conditional protection of
testimonial privacy subject to basic limits recognized before

by the Fifth Amendment is a fundamental trial right of criminal defend-
ants. Although conduct by law enforcement ofﬁcials prior to trial may
ultimately impair that right, a constitutional violation occurs only at trial”
(citation omitted)).

13 The practice of exchanging silence for immunity is unchallenged here
and presumably invulnerable, being apparently as old as the Fifth Amend-
ment itself. See Kastigar, 406 U. S., at 445, and n. 13.