This is from Mr. Justice Frankfurter's dissent of more than half a century ago in a case of government eavesdropping.
"The law of this Court ought not to be open to the just charge of having been dictated by the 'odious doctrine', as Mr. Justice Brandeis called it, that the end justifies reprehensible means. To approve legally what we disapprove morally, on the ground of practical inconvenience, is to yield to a short-sighted view of practicality. It derives from a preoccupation with what is episodic and a disregard of long-run consequences. The method by which the state chiefly exerts an influence upon the conduct of its citizens, it was wisely said by Archbishop William Temple, is 'the moral qualities, which it exhibits in its own conduct'."
"The law of this Court ought not to be open to the just charge of having been dictated by the 'odious doctrine', as Mr. Justice Brandeis called it, that the end justifies reprehensible means. To approve legally what we disapprove morally, on the ground of practical inconvenience, is to yield to a short-sighted view of practicality. It derives from a preoccupation with what is episodic and a disregard of long-run consequences. The method by which the state chiefly exerts an influence upon the conduct of its citizens, it was wisely said by Archbishop William Temple, is 'the moral qualities, which it exhibits in its own conduct'."
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