There is one issue that would go a long way to righting the ship of state that’s been seriously run aground by Bush and his cronies: the individual right of privacy. While privacy isn’t specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution—our privacy rights were established by legal decisions and legislation—most agree that case law has established a right of privacy. The keystone case in this issue was Griswold v. Connecticut in which a Connecticut doctor was arrested, tried, and fined US$100 for providing birth control counseling to married couples in the early 1960s. The case was heard by the United States Supreme Court, which overturned the Connecticut decision on 7 June 1965 in part on the basis of an individual right to privacy.
Justice William O. Douglas, writing for the majority, argued that while the country’s founding documents were silent on the matter of an individual’s right to privacy, they emanated specific legal “penumbras” that established “zones of privacy.” “We deal with a right to privacy older than the Bill of Rights,” wrote Justice Douglas, who went on to note that many rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution are derived from certain Constitutional provisions. Specifically, freedom of association isn’t clearly mentioned in the Constitution, but has been protected as an extension of the Constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly.
Justice Hugo Black dissented from the majority opinion. “I like my privacy as well as the next one, but I am nevertheless compelled to admit that the government has a right to invade it unless prohibited by some specific constitutional provision,” wrote Justice Black in his opinion. Justice Potter Stewart was the other dissenting voice: “I can find no such general right of privacy in the Bill of Rights, in any other part of the Constitution, or in any case ever before decided by this Court.”
The other six Supreme Court justices agreed with Justice Douglas’s majority, but differed on underlying or originating guarantees for the right to privacy.
Justice Douglas’s legal penumbras and zones of privacy—along with the 1974 Privacy Act—were obliterated, of course, with the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001. And that, along with sentiments similar to those of Justices Black and Stewart, is why—with finality and irrevocability—it’s time to pass an amendment guaranteeing a personal right to privacy.
After all, if it’s good enough for the Iraqis, it should be good enough for us.
Last Monday the Iraqis signed a new constitution that includes the basic tenets associated with democracy: fair elections, fair trials, and freedom of speech. Oh, and one more—the right to privacy. Article 13 of the Iraqi Constitution is clear: “Public and private freedoms shall be protected… Each Iraqi has the right to privacy.”
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