There they are hoping to find a solid majority of liberal and libertarian judges who are more sympathetic to their First Amendment claims.
The Court would only consider the Fourth Amendment claim, so the wireless provider was dropped as a petitioner there.
But the court said that the magazine had no First Amendment claim against the city.
Rehnquist began by outlining the dual burden that rested on the plaintiffs in making a viable Fourteenth Amendment claim.
A five-judge panel handed down a short decision addressing the Fourth Amendment claim.
Harlan reiterated that the Court's opinion was based purely on the Fourth Amendment claim DeForte had made, the only one before them.
"We think the Senator has a very strong and potent Fourth Amendment claim of right of privacy against an overreaching, overbroad subpoena," he said.
Yet it is unclear that the courts would sustain a Fourth Amendment claim to some kind of privacy privilege.
Such an offer would trump a Fifth Amendment claim and compel answers under threat of contempt proceedings.
The majority's discussion misinterprets petitioner's 14th Amendment claim as raising a procedural rather than a substantive due process challenge.