Providence Journal photo/ Mary Murphy
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan Tuesday morning discusses with Brown University historian Ted Widmer how Rhode Island's 1663 Colonial Charter helped shape American jurisprudence during a forum at Chace Theater at Trinity Rep.
PROVIDENCE -- U.S Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan forecast Tuesday that the court will increasingly grapple with what constitutes an unreasonable search as advances in technology persist.
"I think we are going to have to do a lot of thinking about that," Kagan said Tuesday during a wide-ranging discussion at Trinity Rep.
Kagan, the fourth female justice to be named to the nation's highest court, credited a dissent written by Justice Louis Brandeis in 1928 with being prescient. In it, Brandeis observed that technology would empower the government with the ability to trespass and invade privacy in subtle ways.
The majority ruled in that case, Olmstead v. United States, that federal agents did not violate a suspect's Fourth Amendment rights through a wiretap. That decision was later overturned.
"Boy, did he get that right," Kagan said of Brandeis's dissent.
Kagan credited Brandeis -- in whose seat she sits -- as one of the greatest justices and writers the high court has seen.
Kagan's comments came in response to questions posed by Brown University historian Ted Widmer, a former speechwriter for both Clintons. The discussion, before a packed theater, hit on how the court reaches decisions, hunting trips with Justice Antonin Scalia, her colloquial writing style and the role of gender in the legal world.
The talk was sponsored by the Roger Williams University School of Law.
An earlier version of this report was posted at 11:02 a.m.