There is no explicit right to privacy in the Constitution, but some aspects of privacy are protected by the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments. This presentation will discuss the historical development of the right to privacy, and in particular, the development of the Fourth Amendment; and then compares this historical development to the current digital age. The development of the right to privacy (especially given the historical context of the Fourth Amendment) to our current age requires us to deal with technologically invasive personal searches as airports, searches and seizures of laptops and other computing devices, and how to handle stored communications. It becomes evident very quickly that searches and seizures are not so clear when it comes to bits and bytes...so where do we go from here?
Michael Schearer ("theprez98") is the author of the "Assault on Privacy" blog, which focuses on governmental intrusions into privacy rights. He also hosts monthly "Flex Your Rights' nights at Unallocated Space, a central Maryland hackerspace. Michael is a government contractor who spent nearly nine years in the United States Navy as an EA-6B Prowler Electronic Countermeasures Officer. His military experience includes aerial combat missions over both Afghanistan and Iraq and nine months on the ground doing counter-IED work with the U.S. Army. He is a graduate of Georgetown University's National Security Studies Program and a speaker at ShmooCon, DEFCON, HOPE, and other conferences. Michael is a licensed amateur radio operator and an active member of the Church of WiFi. He lives in Maryland with his wife and four children Twitter: theprez98