Terrorist sympathizer Andy Griffith rails against Patriot Act

By at 4:01 pm Monday, Jan 22


Sheriff Andy Taylor lectures Opie on the ethical and legal issues around unauthorized eavesdropping in this clip from the Andy Griffith Show. Link (Thanks, Jason Schultz!)

Reader comments: Guilherme Roschke from epic.org says.

I shared the video with my colleagues here at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. With some digging, one of my colleagues figured out that this show aired on October 30, 1967.

That's two weeks after the Supreme Court heard the oral arguments in Katz vs. United States. The FBI had tapped a phone booth without a warrant, and convicted a gambler based on that. The Katz court overturned the conviction, stating that the 4th amendment prohibits this sort of a wiretap without a warrant.

For more on Katz, see wikipedia: Link.

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