If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means—to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal—would bring terrible retribution.
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Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperilled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously.
Justice LOUIS D. BRANDEIS, dissenting, Olmstead et al. v. United States, 277 U.S. 485 (1928).
Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.
LOUIS D. BRANDEIS, “What Publicity Can Do,” Other People’s Money, chapter 5, p. 92 (1932). First published in Harper’s Weekly, December 20, 1913.
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