Decisions of this Court applying the principle of the Boyd case have settled these things. Unjustified search and seizure violates the Fourth Amendment, whatever the character of the paper; whether the paper when taken by the federal officers was in the home, in an office, or elsewhere; whether the taking was effected by force, by fraud, or in the orderly process of a court’s procedure. From these decisions, it follows necessarily that the Amendment is violated by the officer’s reading the paper without a physical seizure, without his even touching it; and that use, in any criminal proceeding, of the contents of the paper so examined—as where they are testified to by a federal officer who thus saw the document, or where, through knowledge so obtained, a copy has been procured elsewhere—any such use constitutes a violation of the Fifth Amendment.
The protection guaranteed by the Amendments is much broader in scope. The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings, and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And the use, as evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth.
Gary Edwards on 26 Oct 11Maybe it's true that technological changes to "productivity" are coming so fast, and with such dramatic improvements, that people can't adapt and keep up; creating a human vs tech productivity gap. Maybe though, productivity / employment is not the most accurate gauge for measuring income, prosperity and wealth. Consumption and investment have to be factored in. The Fair Tax is a better fit for this high tech productivity world than the Progressive Income Tax. Societies that carry a huge militaristic and/or socialistic cost to citizenship and governance are certainly at a competitive disadvantage in a global economy. The cost of productivity has to carry the weight of militaristic/socialist government. In the US, near 50% of the population exist on government subsidized income/re-distribution. If it wasn't for tech pumped productivity, where the return on investment jumps also as labor cost and the cost of product/services distribution falls, it would be impossible for the US private sector to carry the enormous weight of government. It seems to me though that consumption has it's own internal balancing mechanism, if only the government would get out of the way and let it work. Citizens can't consume if they don't produce. Regardless of the the tech productivity bump factor! The other point is that much of this discussion rests on the gravitational law that digital information represents reality; and digital services make reality more efficient with global distribution possibilities (larger markets). But you can't eat "digital representations of reality". You can't physically fly from San Francisco to NYC using strictly digital representations, even though you can simulate communication and connectivity "digitally". At the end of the day, digital machines enable us to work reality in new and efficient ways. But they are still machines. And a reality of physical dimensions remains.
