U.S. v. Miller

Citation: United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435 (1976).

The U.S. Supreme Court in Miller ruled that one does not have a constitutionally protected privacy interest in personal records held by a bank. The Miller decision ultimately turned on the fact that the bank customer could not assert ownership of his documents. The Court held that because Miller's documents were the bank's business records, the expectation of privacy that he asserted was not reasonable. The Court reached this conclusion even though most bank customers probably do have an actual expectation of privacy in those records.

As Justice Brennan stated in dissent in the 5-4 opinion in the Miller case:


 * A bank customer's reasonable expectation is that, absent a compulsion by legal process, the matters he reveals to the bank will be utilized by the bank only for internal banking purposes. . . . [A] depositor reveals many aspects of his personal affairs, opinions, habits, associations. Indeed, the totality of bank records provides a virtual current biography.... Development of photocopying machines, electronic computers and other sophisticated instruments have accelerated the ability of government to intrude into areas which a person normally chooses to exclude from prying eyes and inquisitive minds. Consequently, judicial interpretations of the constitutional protection of individual privacy must keep pace with the perils created by these new devices.

Subsequent Developments
The year following the Miller decision, Congress passed the Right to Financial Privacy Act, which limits government access to personal bank records.