# Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928)

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/scotus-olmstead-v-united-states-1928/

The Supreme Court holds, 4 June 1928, that federal prohibition officers' wiretapping of telephone lines without entering the defendants' premises was not a search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment, so the intercepted conversations were admissible.

Decided June 4, 1928, on certiorari from the Ninth Circuit; Nos. 493, 532 and 533. The defendants had been convicted in the Western District of Washington of conspiring to violate the National Prohibition Act by importing, possessing and selling liquor. The Court held that the wiretapping, done by federal prohibition officers without entering the defendants' premises, was not a search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment, so the intercepted conversations were admissible. Chief Justice Taft wrote for the Court; Justices Holmes, Brandeis, Butler and Stone dissented.

The opinion says: "The Amendment does not forbid what was done here. There was no searching. There was no seizure." It describes the conspiracy as involving not less than fifty persons and two seagoing vessels and says four federal prohibition officers made the taps. Review was limited to the single Fourth and Fifth Amendment question.

A National Archives Bureau of Prohibition file on a Seattle police-graft case carries an "Olmstead" file-unit label, but it is a different matter; see the Seattle memorandum filed here. Quotations follow CourtListener's scan-derived text.

## Sources

- CourtListener (Free Law Project), reprinting the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/101320/olmstead-v-united-states/