Reading Room Document

The Fourth Amendment and Intelligence Searches

This memo examined two possible issues with the proposed National Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1980 (later enacted as the Intelligence Oversight Act). It first considered the Act’s authorization of electronic surveillance and physical searches in certain situations against American citizens located abroad who were not suspected of any criminal conduct. It then analyzed Title VIII of the Act, which established a warrant procedure for authorizing entry onto private property without notice to the owner. The memo concluded that both these provisions were constitutional, but recognized that “to many there is something deeply disturbing about the notion that government can invade their privacy in foreign countries,” and “their offense grows when the intrusion is justified by a talismanic invocation of ‘national security’—a phrase with a spotty history and an elastic definition.”

March 28, 1980