Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2014
Rights
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Abstract
The importance of the door for human civilization cannot be overstated. In various cultures, the door has been a central technology for negotiating the distinction between inside and outside, private and public, and profane and sacred. By tracing the material and symbolic significance of the door in American Fourth Amendment case law, this article illuminates the vitality of matter for law’s everyday practices. In particular, it highlights how various door configurations affect the level of constitutional protections granted to those situated on the inside of the door and the important role of vision for establishing legal expectations of privacy. Eventually, I suggest that we might be witnessing the twilight of the “physical door” era and the beginning of a “virtual door” era in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. As recent physical and technological changes present increasingly sophisticated challenges to the distinctions between inside and outside, private and public, and prohibited and accepted visions, the Supreme Court will need to carefully articulate what is worth protecting on the other side of the door.
Publication Title
Law, Culture and the Humanities
First Page
669
Last Page
692
Recommended Citation
Irus Braverman,
Rights of Passage: On Doors, Technology, and the Fourth Amendment,
12
Law, Culture & Human.
669
(2014).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/journal_articles/317