Government officials must obtain a warrant before forcibly entering a home (absent consent or an emergency). That rule goes back to the Founding. But in a series of cases, culminating in Camara v. San Francisco in 1967, the Supreme Court announced an ahistorical exception, holding that the Fourth Amendment is less protective when it is a health inspector, rather than a police officer, knocking at the door.

On this episode, we hear from Marshall Krause, who argued Camara on behalf of the ACLU of Northern California. And we head to Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where a challenge to the borough’s rental inspection program lays bare the cost of ignoring traditional limits on government power.

Click here for episode transcript.

Frank v. Maryland

Camara v. San Francisco