ABSTRACT
Boyd marked out a substantial zone of privacy to be free from governmental intrusion. The Fifth Amendment protection against use of a person's own documents as part and parcel of the government's case also has all but evaporated. The lifeblood of the administrative investigation, like the grand jury proceeding, is the subpoena, and if there is to be any meaningful, independent oversight of administrative investigations, it must come through control over the subpoena power. In reality, the courts have done nothing more than insure that the subpoena on its face meets the threshold requirements of particularity and relevance, without probing either the purpose or the contours of the agency's investigation. Of all governmental investigations, the congressional inquiry raises perhaps the deepest concerns. As long as motives go unquestioned, legislative investigations will be a fertile ground for the abuse of individual rights, either to serve partisan interests or to pander to public opinion.
