In the case of Andresen v. Maryland, 1975, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that a search and seizure of business records from an individual's office did not violate his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. The defendant, Mr. Andresen was convicted for false pretenses after documents were seized from his office under a warrant during an investigation into fraudulent land transactions he had conducted through his real estate business. He argued that this violated his constitutional rights as it compelled him to provide evidence against himself by seizing papers related to charges made against him. However, the court held that since these were voluntarily prepared documents rather than compelled statements or testimony, they did not fall within the scope of protection offered by the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Furthermore, because there was specific cause for each document sought in relation to particular criminal acts being investigated and thus met requirements set out by Fourth Amendment protections on unreasonable searches and seizures.

In the dissenting opinion for Andresen v. Maryland, Justice Brennan argued that the majority's decision violated the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. He contended that a search warrant must describe with particularity what is to be seized, which was not done in this case as it allowed officers to seize any documents related to fraudulent activities without specifying them. Furthermore, he disagreed with the majority’s view on Fifth Amendment self-incrimination protections; he believed they should extend beyond compelled oral testimony to include personal papers used as evidence of criminal activity. In his view, using an individual’s private records against them constituted forced self-incrimination just as much as compelling verbal testimony would have been.