The Idea of My New Book, The Digital Fourth Amendment—and Why It Matters

Orin Kerr · 26 Mar 2025

Orin Kerr did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
When technology changes what an old legal rule does, courts should preserve the rule's purpose rather than its literal terms.

Their wordsMy book argues that courts should preserve the role, not the rule—and it then shows what new specific rules should follow from that.
Our reading
Applying the old Fourth Amendment rules unchanged to digital evidence would gut its protection over time.

Their wordsBecause of the way computers happen to work, sticking with the old rules would mean gutting Fourth Amendment protection over time.

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The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.