Right to Privacy. Do we need it?

I have just been thinking about this lately.

Do we really need a right to privacy?

What I don't like losing my privacy is the idea that there are a select few (the current administration, for instance) might have exclusive access to know things about me, that others don't and that I don't know about others, including the administration.

However, if everyone knew what everyone was doing would that be so bad.  If every financial transaction were public it would be harder to be corrupt, harder to bribe, harder to blackmail, harder to siphon off money that isn't yours, harder to hide a conflict of interest.  That would be great, no?

On the other hand, I might think twice before ordering porn.  Not saying that porn is necessarily bad.  But if it is not bad then maybe people should be ashamed when they order it.

Anyway, there are potential downsides for sure.  But I like the idea of the whole world being an open book.  In fact, I would say that without that, there are problems that will never get solved.

•  time for states to act

  more agressively on the issue and I feel they will begin challenging much more often.

  No state leadership wants to be associated with a 36% percent approval rating.  

  Also the majority of this has to be worked out in the courts and there will be a lot of changes before everything is said and done.

  by lightnessofbeing on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 04:15:40 PM PDT

•  Don't think I agree, but you might enjoy

  David Brin's SF novel Earth which, among other things, includes one idea of a future society organized around the elimination of privacy as a dangerous and anti-social concept (along with a bunch of other odd things in the set-up).

  by Warren Terra on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 04:17:52 PM PDT

•  Here in California

  It's written into our Constitution.

  CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION
  ARTICLE 1  DECLARATION OF RIGHTS

  SECTION 1.  All people are by nature free and independent and have
  inalienable rights.  Among these are enjoying and defending life and
  liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing
  and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.

  by Aeolus on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 04:22:14 PM PDT

  •  Just ask a Kossack

    With free answers.

    by Aeolus on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 04:23:24 PM PDT

•  Anonymity on the internets.

  I do know that I personally behave a lot better when my name is attached to what I'm doing... for what that's worth.

  by SensibleShoes on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 04:28:32 PM PDT

  •  But, you have a pseudonym

    that you have established over time. It has value. Or not. Maybe it's just a throwaway for some people.

    Lots of people stand behind their work and their words even when it is "only" their pseudonym that is attached, and not an official birth name.

    Our... constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds. Thurgood Marshall

    by bronte17 on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 04:47:54 PM PDT

    •  Yeah, my pseudonym matters.

      Also, I've revealed my real name numerous times. Both of these things keep me better behaved :).

      by SensibleShoes on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 05:18:21 PM PDT

•  the right to be let alone

  The modern notion of a "right to privacy" springs from Mr. Justice Brandeis' dissent in Olmstead v. US (1928) 277 US 438, at 478-479. Here is what he says:

  The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone--the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And the use, as evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth.

  The right to privacy--the "right to be let alone"--is the root of all other rights, and it is not something you want to give up, ever, to anyone, and particularly to the State.

  by blueness on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 04:34:30 PM PDT

•  Couldn't vote: Amazon is still a red company

  and donates to Rethuglicans...so I don't buy from them. Separate from that:  their privacy policy sucks - they sell everything to anybody with money.

  What I disclose should be my choice...not the government's choice. Lots of my stuff is out there because of my activism...but it's better if someone that wants it has to work for it.

  Privacy - yep I'm in favor of it...and especially as long as this group of thugs is in power.

  by SallyCat on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 04:35:56 PM PDT

•  Yes, we do need it

  Period.

  by TruthOfAngels on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 04:39:27 PM PDT

•  We need a privacy amendment

  Private medical records and medical procedures; thereby the right to abortion, birth control, and assisted suicide, which should only be between the patient, their doctor and if they believe, their god.

  Private records, which includes financial records, communication records (phone, internet, whatever), medical records, any information about a person.

  If there is a problem, get a warrent. If they want to data mine, get a warrent. If they want to wiretap, survail, whatever they want to call it get a warrent. Privacy should come as a birth right.

  by sailmaker on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 04:49:12 PM PDT

•  The Point Of A Right

  Is not that you need it or ever reasonably expect to need it. Rights do not exist to protect the majority, for the most part. They exist to protect the few (hopefully, the few) from persecution, perversion, and even mere incompetence. In other words the last thing you should ask yourself is whether you need a right to privacy. What you should ask yourself is: Does your daughter?

  You are at liberty to provide to the government or any of the myriad private contractors they employ or datamining firms or other countries with whom they freely share data, all of your info. Help yourself. Ask not whether we need a right to privacy, ask whether you do. Because you aren't the boss of everyone nor do you want to undermine things merely by not understanding the need for them... So aggressively.

  And by the way you ought to reflect long and hard on the fact that no one is talking about making the world an open book. The same people gunning for your rights are taking more and more for themselves and locking the workings of government far from sight. You work on the latter, and solve that problem, and then we'll talk about what a KNOWN QUANTITY should have unfettered access to.

  by NewDirection on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 04:52:08 PM PDT

•  All I know

  Is if i'm gonna worry about it now; I'm SOL.
  Privacy went the way of the dodo.

  by manwithnoname on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 04:55:46 PM PDT

•  Yes. Without qualification.

  You wish to be an open book to the world?

  If nothing in your life is important enough to be kept close, tucked between the pages of time and away from the prying eyes of the world, I am sorry for all the beauty, all of the vibrancy you have missed as you go through life.

  Some things are not meant to be public. Not because they are a threat, but because some moments are simply yours alone.

  by MrSandman on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 05:26:41 PM PDT

  •  used to be called the family bible.

    by Stonewall Custer on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 05:35:30 PM PDT

•  Not only should privacy be protected

  but it should be made the foundation of a new civil rights movement where the Bill Of Rights is extended and reinforced against adventures like that of the right wing since Reagan.

  The European Union has made an excellent start, but Al Gore was right when he laid out the four principles in 1998:

  ...[privacy] embodies four central principles.

  First, you should have the right to choose whether or not your personal information is disclosed.

  Second, you should have the right to know how, when, and how much of that information is being used.

  Third, you should have the right to see the information yourself.

  And fourth, you should have the right to know if it is accurate or not.

  What the European Union Directive has added to the mix is that each citizen owns any data about themselves and, therefore, must give explicit permission (and, potentially, be compensated for "renting") any data about them.

  No one can act freely when data about them is held in secret by the Government and by private contractors willing to sell it to the highest bidder.  

  What needs to happen is the opposite:  information about the Government and any private enterprise it employs must be made available to the citizen who is the object of that information.  Always.  No FISA Court compromise.  No "we'll keep you safe" false promises.  Law enforcement actions must be obvious and public.  Intelligence operations cannot be allowed in the United States at all.

  Allowing the myth that some information should be secret cannot continue: it only weakens us as a nation and limits us as citizens.  Since Reagan revived the onslaught of the Nixon Administration, and extended it well beyond those awful days, on our civil liberties, prison populations have gone to over 2,000,000 from 500,000.  During that same period, the line between domestic and foreign intelligence has been deliberately blurred without any redeeming social value or worthy purpose.

  The Government has no rights.  It has no soul, no conscience and no consequences if it screws up.  The Government is a myth to which we all agree and endow with power to further our own purposes and ensure our personal and communal liberty.  Period. It has no claim to information about any citizen without an express purpose which must be stated publically and subject to immediate challenge in court.

  Not one byte.  Ever.

  by eOz on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 07:07:06 PM PDT