Devil Doc
When Death smiles, Corpsmen smile back
It's the birthday of the lawyer and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Louis Brandeis, born in Louisville, Kentucky (1856). He was the man who introduced the concept of a right to privacy to American law.
His parents were Jewish immigrants from Prague, and as a teenager Brandeis lived in Dresden, Germany, for two years. But he preferred the United States. He said, "In Kentucky you could whistle." He came back to study law at Harvard and graduated at the top of his class. As a lawyer, he specialized in progressive causes, fighting for minimum wage laws and for anti-trust laws. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Brandeis to the Supreme Court. He was the first Jewish person to be nominated to the Supreme Court.
Twelve years later, Brandeis wrote the first Supreme Court opinion asserting a right to privacy in the case Olmstead v. United. States. Federal agents had tapped the phone of a man named Olmstead who was selling whiskey illegally. The court ruled against Olmstead, since the Fourth Amendment says nothing about listening to a conversation as constituting a search or a seizure. But Brandeis wrote a dissenting opinion in which he said, "Constitutional amendments must have the capacity to adapt to a changing world. ... The progress of science in furnishing the government with the means of espionage is not likely to stop with wiretapping. ... Whenever a telephone line is tapped, the privacy of the persons at both ends is invaded.
Doc.
His parents were Jewish immigrants from Prague, and as a teenager Brandeis lived in Dresden, Germany, for two years. But he preferred the United States. He said, "In Kentucky you could whistle." He came back to study law at Harvard and graduated at the top of his class. As a lawyer, he specialized in progressive causes, fighting for minimum wage laws and for anti-trust laws. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Brandeis to the Supreme Court. He was the first Jewish person to be nominated to the Supreme Court.
Twelve years later, Brandeis wrote the first Supreme Court opinion asserting a right to privacy in the case Olmstead v. United. States. Federal agents had tapped the phone of a man named Olmstead who was selling whiskey illegally. The court ruled against Olmstead, since the Fourth Amendment says nothing about listening to a conversation as constituting a search or a seizure. But Brandeis wrote a dissenting opinion in which he said, "Constitutional amendments must have the capacity to adapt to a changing world. ... The progress of science in furnishing the government with the means of espionage is not likely to stop with wiretapping. ... Whenever a telephone line is tapped, the privacy of the persons at both ends is invaded.
Doc.
