ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the US Supreme Court examined whether the government violated the Constitution when it executed a search warrant issued against a newspaper office that was not a criminal suspect. The case arose during the period of protest demonstrations against the Vietnam War, as waves of antiwar activity swept across the country. The court ruled in favor of the newspaper, holding that the Fourth Amendment prohibited issuing a warrant to search one not suspected of crime except upon a showing that a subpoena would be ineffective. The significance of Stanford Daily was the Court's holding that search warrants could be issued legally against nonsuspects who might have some evidence related to a crime. The relatively conservative members of the Court under the leadership of Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, however, was circumvented by the Democratic–controlled Congress through its enactment of the Privacy Protection Act of 1980. This law prohibited unannounced searches of media newsrooms by law enforcement officials.
