Cite as: 524 U. S. 666 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
ers, however, might suggest a concern broad enough to encompass foreign prosecutions and accordingly to support a more expansive theory of the privilege than the Murdock understanding would allow.
The adoption of any such revised theory would, however, necessarily rest on Murphy's reading of preconstitutional common-law cases as support for (or at least as opening the door to) the expansive view of the Framers' intent, which we and the commentators since Murphy have found to be unsupported. Once the Murphy majority's treatment of the English cases is rejected as an indication of the meaning intended for the Clause, Murdock must be seen as precedent at odds with Balsys's claim. That precedent aside, however, we think there would be sound reasons to stop short of resting an expansion of the Clause's scope on the highly general statements of policy expressed in the foregoing quotation from Murphy. While its list does indeed catalog aspirations furthered by the Clause, its discussion does not even purport to weigh the host of competing policy concerns that would be raised in a legitimate reconsideration of the Clause's scope.
A
The most general of Murphy's policy items ostensibly suggesting protection as comprehensive as that sought by Balsys is listed in the opinion as "the inviolability of the human personality and . . . the right of each individual to a private enclave where he may lead a private life." 378 U. S., at 55 (internal quotation marks omitted). Whatever else those terms might cover, protection of personal inviolability and the privacy of a testimonial enclave would necessarily seem to include protection against the Government's very intrusion through involuntary interrogation.12 If in fact
12 We are assuming, arguendo, that the intrusion is a subject of the Clause's protection. See Murphy, 378 U. S., at 57, n. 6; Gecas, 120 F. 3d, at 1462 (Birch, J., dissenting); cf. United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U. S. 259, 264 (1990) ("The privilege against self-incrimination guaranteed
691
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