Live at the National Constitution Center

The Fourth Amendment: Past and Present

December 31, 2019

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Two leading Fourth Amendment scholars join NCC President Jeffrey Rosen to trace the history and interpretation of the Fourth Amendment from the founding to today. They explain some Fourth Amendment basics like: What is a warrant? What are subpoenas? When and why can they be issued? They also dive into key Supreme Court opinions that interpreted the Fourth Amendment, and give their takes on whether the Court’s Fourth Amendment doctrine has kept up with the digital age.

This program was presented in partnership with the Federal Judicial Center.

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PARTICIPANTS

Laura K. Donohue is a Professor of Law at Georgetown Law, Director of Georgetown’s Center on National Security and the Law, and Director of the Center on Privacy and Technology. She writes on foreign intelligence, biological weapons, biometric identification, drones, artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, federalism, constitutional law, and legal history. Her most recent book, The Future of Foreign Intelligence: Privacy and Surveillance in a Digital Age, was awarded the 2016 IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize. She also has written The Cost of Counterterrorism: Power, Politics, and Liberty; and Counterterrorist Law and Emergency Law in the United Kingdom 1922-2000.

Chris Slobogin is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Law Director for Criminal Justice Program and an Affiliate Professor of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt Law School, and one of the five most cited criminal law and procedure law professors in the country over the past five years. He is the author of more than 100 articles, books and chapters on topics relating to criminal law and procedure, mental health law and evidence. He has been published by the University of Chicago, Harvard University and Oxford University presses and in journals such as the Chicago Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Northwestern Law Review, Pennsylvania Law Review, Stanford Law Review and Virginia Law Review. His books include Privacy at Risk: The New Government Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment, Juveniles at Risk: A Plea for Preventative Justice, and Proving the Unprovable: The Role of Law, Science, and Speculation in Adjudicating Culpability and Dangerousness among others.

​​​​​​Jeffrey Rosen is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Constitution Center, the only institution in America chartered by Congress “to disseminate information about the United States Constitution on a nonpartisan basis.” 

Additional Resources


This episode was engineered by Greg Scheckler and Jackie McDermott and produced by Jackie McDermott and Tanaya Tauber.

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