Wobbling Between Privacy And Security —Electronic Communications Monitoring Legal Regulation Of The United States

The ex-electronic age before the early 20 th century was limited by the legislative background.According to the "physical intrusion" theory,the ruling of Olmstead v. United States revealed that the Fourth Amendment’s proscription on unreasonable search and seizure did not apply to wiretaps.Federal Communications Act of 1934 had tried to reverse this situation.However,a series of cases after the bill showed that this legislative effort had not achieved the desired effect,the "physical invasion" theory still played an important role in the ruling of communication monitor cases.The appearing of Katz v. United States had attracted much attention of citizens’ privacy of communications monitoring cases.The Court extended the Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure to protect individuals with a "reasonable expectation of privacy".Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 marked the Legal Regulation of Electronic Communications Monitoring of the United States had basically formed,which was primarily designed to prevent unauthorized government access to private electronic communications.Early 21 st century, American society was facing a huge security threat,privacy protection had been replaced by national security.From broad concern felt among Americans from both the September 11 attacks and the 2001 anthrax attacks,Congress rushed to pass the USA PATRIOT Act to strengthen security controls.Until American Freedom Act of 2015,privacy protection had regained social attention and the legal regulation returned to a state of balance between privacy and security.