Late last month, SCOTUS issued its most far-reaching expansion of the right to privacy in over 50 years in Carpenter v. United States. While not completely abandoning legal precedent that had been black-letter law, it is most certainly the first injection of the color gray.

First, however, a brief stroll down memory lane of the history of the law’s recognition of the legal right to privacy is necessary. It is only from this perspective that the truly ground-breaking impact of Carpenter can be fully appreciated.

In the Beginning