Securing Informationships: Recognizing a Right to Privity in Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence

This Note argues for judicial recognition of a Fourth Amendment right to privity, conceived broadly as a right to make limited disclosure of one's personal information without surrendering the constitutional privacy interests that attach to it. In particular, this Note challenges the so-called third-party doctrine, which holds that when individuals disclose information to a third party, they retain no constitutional protection against government searches of that information. It argues that a privity right is essential for people to be secure in their "papers," particularly in a world increasingly defined by "informationships," or relationships formed around shared access to and exchange of personal information.