Katz v. United States · ¶6

Because of the misleading way the issues have been formulated, the parties have attached great significance to the characterization of the telephone booth from which the petitioner placed his calls. The petitioner has strenuously argued that the booth was a “constitutionally protected area.” The Government has maintained with equal vigor that it was not. But this effort to decide whether or not a given “area,” viewed in the abstract, is “constitutionally protected” deflects attention from the problem presented by this case. For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. See Lewis v. United States, 385 U. S. 206, 210; United States v. Lee, 274 U. S. 559, 563. But what he seeks-to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be…

U. S. Reports, bound volume
U. S. Reports, volume 389, at 347 (Library of Congress) · transcription: Caselaw Access Project
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