In the case of Goldstein et al. v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled in 1941 that wiretapped private telephone conversations could be admitted as evidence in federal courts. The defendants, convicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States by impeding and impairing its lawful governmental functions through deceitful and dishonest means, appealed their conviction on grounds that it was based on evidence obtained from a wiretap which violated their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. However, Justice Robert Houghwout Jackson stated that since there was no physical invasion of the defendant's premises when obtaining this information via phone lines outside his house, there were no constitutional rights infringed upon under Fourth Amendment protections. This decision upheld lower court rulings allowing such evidence until it was later overturned by Katz v. United States (1967), where it was decided that wiretaps constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment.

In the dissenting opinion for Goldstein et al. v. United States, Justice Frankfurter argued that the majority's interpretation of Section 2(a) of the Securities Act was incorrect and overly broad. He contended that this section should not be applied to transactions which are not directly part of interstate commerce or do not use instrumentalities thereof, as it would extend federal jurisdiction too far into areas traditionally regulated by state law. He also expressed concern about potential abuses if such a wide-ranging interpretation were adopted, including possible overreach by federal authorities in prosecuting securities fraud cases involving purely local transactions with no substantial connection to interstate commerce. Furthermore, he disagreed with the majority's view that Congress intended such an expansive reading when it enacted the legislation during Great Depression era.