| abstract | - Under current law, to establish a reasonable expectation of privacy a person must establish two things: that the individual had a subjective expectation of privacy; and that that subjective expectation of privacy is one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. If either element is missing, no protected interest is established. To support this privacy analysis, the Supreme Court has created a hierarchy of privacy interests: First, expectations of privacy that "society is 'prepared to recognize as legitimate' have, at least in theory, the greatest protection. Second, diminished expectations of privacy are more easily invaded. Third, subjective expectations of privacy that society is not prepared to recognize as legitimate have no protection. No bright line rule indicates whether an expectation of privacy is constitutionally reasonable. For example, the Supreme Court has held that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in property located inside a person’s home, in conversations taking place in an enclosed phone booth, and in the contents of opaque containers. In contrast, a person does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in activities conducted in open fields, in garbage deposited at the outskirts of real property, or in a stranger’s house that the person has entered without the owner’s consent in order to commit a theft. "Reasonable expectations of privacy arise from 'a source outside of the 4th Amendment, either by reference to concepts of real or personal property law or to understandings that are recognized and permitted by society.'"
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