The Latest at Constitution Daily Blog
Supreme Court considers scope of government access to cellphone location data
by Scott Bomboy | Read time: 5 minutes
“How far can law enforcement go in asking digital companies to turn over data about their customers without violating the Fourth Amendment? This basic question of balancing privacy and public safety interests in the digital age will soon be considered at the Supreme Court, with potentially major implications. … ” Read more
Constitutional Voices: W.E.B. Du Bois
by Trey Sullivan | Read time: 4 minutes
This series of profiles features noteworthy people over the past 250 years who have shaped the American constitutional tradition in various ways. In this post, National Constitution Center content fellow Trey Sullivan looks at the pioneering work of W.E.B. Du Bois, whose work on race and justice included co-founding the NAACP. Read more
New on We the People
Emily Sneff on When the Declaration of Independence Was News
Run time: 52 minutes
In this episode historian Emily Sneff discusses her new book, When the Declaration of Independence Was News, which focuses on the nation’s founding document at the moment of its creation in 1776, before anyone knew what the legacy of the Declaration would be or if the United States would win the war against Great Britain. It explores how the Declaration was communicated to people in the new nation and around the Atlantic world and reveals the stories of the many people involved in the process of declaring independence, from printers to soldiers to diplomats to translators. Julie Silverbrook, chief content and learning officer at the National Constitution Center, moderates. Listen now
New Keepsake Volume From the NCC
The Promise of America: Reflections on Our Enduring Ideals
In this one-of-a-kind keepsake volume, leading historical scholars take a fresh look at America’s founding documents—the texts, historical context, key principles that animated the framers, and their influence across American history and around the world. This print volume builds on the foundation of the Center’s Interactive Declaration of Independence and the America at 250 Civic Toolkit, bringing together new essays, primary sources, and interpretive scholarship in a lasting, portable format designed to support deeper reflection and shared civic dialogue.
The Promise of America features contributions from an extraordinary array of voices, led by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer (Ret.), who provides the introduction, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who authors the epilogue. It also includes a line-by-line annotated Declaration of Independence prepared by constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar. Additional contributors include Jeffrey Rosen, CEO Emeritus of the National Constitution Center; historian and author Walter Isaacson; Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Gordon S. Wood; MacArthur Fellow Danielle Allen; Hon. Jeffrey Sutton, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and leading scholars including Robert P. George, Jane Kamensky, Yuval Levin, Mary Sarah Bilder, Lindsay Chervinsky, Rosemarie Zagarri, David Armitage, and Eric Slauter. Learn morePREORDER NOW
On Thursday, May 21, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and National Constitution Center Semiquincentennial Scholar Jon Meacham will discuss The Promise of America during a National Constitution Center Book Club series event. Register to attend
Constitutional Text of the Week
Fourth Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Read interpretations in the Interactive Constitution
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