08.15.06
The Right of Privacy
From Congress.org:
Weekly Update August 14, 2006: Your Ideas: Constitutional Amendment: Right to Privacy. As part of our focus on activists and their ideas, we present this proposed idea for legislation from Bonita Springs, Fl. A “Privacy Amendment” to state and the U.S. Constitutions that guarantees a right to privacy in all areas of our lives. This would impact things such as telemarketeing calls, medical records access, gun registration, abortion, gay rights and many other areas of personal behavior and activity. Most of these issues were impacted by courts’ interpretations of a right to privacy and the debate as to whether the U.S. Constitution has an implied right to privacy as was decided for example in Roe v. Wade. By passing an amendment, this issue and others would be decided once and for all. Should your elected officials support or introduce a constitutional amendment that guarantees a right to privacy? Write to President Bush, Congress and your governor and state legislature to let them know your views on this idea.
This is my response:
Honorable Sirs and Mesdames, the Right of Privacy is something that needs to be specifically addressed by the Government of the United States in our Constitution, such that present and future generations shall have a protected right with regard to their personal lives, information, and individual doings (where these may not be legitimately and reasonably construed as supporting the breaking of the already esablished and accepted laws of the country). There is no reason for not ensuring the Right of Privacy, and many reasons to do so.
The 9th, 3rd, 4th, and 5th amendments are not fully adequate to the task, and it seems plain that this is so by reason of the matter being unsettled in the courts (including the court of public opinion). An amendment to the Constitution would settle this by clearly stating what the inherent right of every citizen is in regard to privacy.
Hon. Sirs and Mesdames, the government exists as an extension of both the will of the people of the United States and the wisdom of the country’s founders. To an extent it is clear that the Constitution supercedes the fashions of the day; its core values are effectively immutable. But it is equally clear that its design enjoys the ability to adapt as society changes generationally, indeed it must do so. As Jefferson pointed out, every generation needs a new revolution. Privacy ought to be a protected right, lest some in power divine in the sea change an end to their power (which they were elected to and not given in perpetuity) and seek to throw down the tide. Every wave thrown back to the sea lends itself to the creation of an unconquerable tsunami or to the making of a dead sea. Neither end ought to be thought desireable.
However clear it is to some member of our esteemed government that his or her personal opinion on some important matter is pure and true for all, it is never in his or her purview to surpass the granted authority of the country’s laws or the wise discourse of its founders with regard to the liberty of the country’s citizens.
Privacy is an essential component of liberty, being a support beam in the right of autonomy and self-rule promoted by the founders of our country and sketched out in its Constitution. We are a nation of individuals who — in order to maintain life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — require that our personal lives remain free from trespass. American citizens are not children in need of parenting. American citizents should enjoy the greatest privilege of self-rule and autonomy, free from the untried dictates of those in positions of power who would claim the right to make them.
I hope that you will consider the desire of our nation’s founders, as well as the content and spirit of this humble letter, in supporting an amendment that will make clear the right of privacy for all citizens as part of the nation’s Constitution.
Thank you.
This letter was sent to:
- George W. Bush (R)
- Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
- Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
- Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA)
- Representative Hilda L. Solis (D-CA 32nd)
- Gloria Romero (D-CA 24th)
- Carol Liu (D-CA 44th)
