Conclusion

Abstract

In the conclusion, I argue that when courts apply the Fourth or Fifth Amendment to neuroimaging, they should focus not only on measuring the intrusion that use of this technology creates in a particular instance, but at how use of it might affect individuals’ sense of privacy in their mental lives more generally, If privacy of thought is to continue to serve, in Isaiah Berlin’s words, as an “inner citadel,” then constitutional safeguards should prevent it from being technologically breached not only in cases where the breach would reveal mental content that courts regard as particularly intimate or sensitive, but in all circumstances where the government lacks very powerful reasons for its intrusion.