Author: Stanley Bolten
Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485 (1928) (“Decency, security and liberty
https://casetext.com/case/olmstead-v-united-states-green-v-same-innis-v-same
alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of
conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the
government will be imperilled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our
Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches
the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a
lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself;
it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies
the means — to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the
conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious
doctrine this Court should resolutely set its face.”)