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The Privacy Illusion
LoLobey writes "Scott Adams has an entertaining entry on his Dilbert Blog about the perception of privacy. He writes, 'It has come to my attention that many of my readers in the United States believe they have the right to privacy because of something in the Constitution. That is an unsupportable view. A more accurate view is that the government divides the details of your life into two categories: 1. Stuff they don't care about. 2. Stuff they can find out if they have a reason.' His post is written in response to some reader comments on another entry about privacy guardians and how swell life would be if we voluntarily gave up certain personal info."
While somewhat off-topic it puzzles me why these questions about privacy deal mainly with the government abuse of power (in the US at least). Living in a "socialist" country in the Northern Europe I can honestly say that I feel the government is protecting my privacy against companies and other private entities that might try to abuse this information about me rather than it being the big threat. While certainly not perfect or run by perfect people at least in theory the government represents the people for the people and is regulated by the people themselves while the private entities serve only the interests of a few and are in fact required to try to "maximize the profits for their owners" and thus to abuse their power to the full extent they can within the law (or slightly outside, which they can try to influence).
I am aware of the differences in the history, the fact that government used to be about the only entity with enough resources (but would claim this is not even close to being the case now) nor am I saying the government should be given free hands to do whatever.
But there seems to be such a difference in the standard mindset I would be interested in hearing some explanation for this.
What I hate about these articles that say there is no right to privacy in the Constitution is that they completely forget about the existence of the Ninth Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
What that amendment means is that "just because we did not list that right here, does not mean it does not exist as a right. There are many rights we did not list here, and this amendment is intended to protect them as well as those we did list already". And yes, it is very broad. It is supposed to be broad because it is supposed to be a check on government power and a protection of the publics general rights. The Tenth Amendment is written along a similar line. Both are intended to say "any power or right we did not explicitly give to the federal government, we give to the people and the states". They are supposed to be very very broad because they are supposed to have a very broad interpretation in order to protect personal freedom and the autonomy of the states. And I think a right to privacy easily passes the test for inclusion under the Ninth Amendment.
I disagree with anyone who says that the Constitution contains no right to privacy. It contains one, by virtue of the Ninth Amendment, by not explicitly denying it.
...who has never read the US Constitution (something I have in common with probably 99% of US citizens), and whose primary knowledge of the Consitutional amendments extends only to the 18th and 21st Amendments, and the 5th amendment because I used to watch so many US lawyer shows (Perry Mason, LA Law, Ally I cannot comment on what, if any, privacy protections are given to the public in those documents - I suspect nothing explicit is included (, and further I suspect that any implied protections are based on individual interpretation of the wording.
From my perspective, the biggest issue is not that Law Enforcement agencies can conduct surveillance and gather information on citizens, but that that the checks and balances to allow investigation while preventing authoritarian abuses (i.e. the need to apply for a Judicial warrant before engaging in said surveillance beyond certain well-defined boundaries) have been eroded to the point where there seems to be no judicial oversight and no ability for the public to scrutinise the process after the fact.
Human rights are not derived from any legal instrument. They have always flowed from the same source -- a willingness to fight against their removal.
A most precise and excellently worded observation. My hat off to you.
I'd also point out that we have the rights we say we have. It's not like the right to life, liberty, and property/pursuit of hapiness is handed down by nature. Nature would allow trillions of things to deprive you of life, doesn't give a fuck about your liberty, has no concept of property, and has designed your brain to make hapiness fleeting.
Rights as they are defined in the constitution were people agreeing that those rights were a good idea. I think most people would agree that we have a right to privacy today. They would have agreed to it back when the constitution was being drafted were it a question. But it probably wouldn't occur to them that 200 years later, it would be so easy to see nearly everything that everyone does.
I wonder what rights we enjoy as a default today that will come into question due to technology in the next 200 years. Rights not to have your consciousness electronically amalgamated into a collective mind? Maybe we should put an amendment to that effect into place now. The Borg were pretty creepy.