Fourth Amendment: Like a Bird on a Wire

By Michael Tigar, Esq.

January 2024

This excerpt from the author’s 2021 memoirs, Sensing Injustice: A Lawyer’s Life in the Battle for Change, traces the rise of illegal U.S. government wiretapping in the 1960s and 1970s. The author details the methods used (like FBI agents disguised as telephone repairmen installing bugs in targeted phones) and the various legal battles against unconstitutional practices, all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is the first of a two-part article.