The Right to Privacy

Do you believe in the right to privacy? The right to privacy (a) made contraception legal, which (b) made abortion legal, and (c) made gay sex legal. So, if you are against any one of these being legal, you are probably against the right to privacy in some form or another.

So what exactly is the right to privacy? Well, the best way to explain it is to give examples of when you should be able to expect privacy. Let's say that having sex doggie style is illegal. Would it be okay, in an attempt to enforce the law, for police to look under the curtains in your bedroom window to see if you are breaking the law? We certainly would think that is illegal.

Would it be okay, in an attempt to enforce the law, for police to look under the curtains in your bedroom window to see if you are printing counterfeit money? Same window, but how much sympathy do we have now for what the husband and wife are doing and how they are caught doing it?

Is it reasonable to expect your doctor to keep your patient record private? Should it be against the law for someone's doctor to release his HIV status to the local newspaper without his permission? You have an unquestioned right to expect your medical information be kept private. But why? What right do you have to demand that right, if the government insists that you give up all of your medical information? There is no right to the privacy of personal information in the constitution... whether we are talking about medical records or not.

What about your bank account information? You certainly don't have a right to keep that information private. Why? Why don't you have a right to keep your financial situation private, but a right to keep your medical situation private?

The constitution makes no mention of any right to privacy... but it doesn't annotate the right to free thought or a right to oxygen or comfort either... or, most notably, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Why? Because like the right to privacy, these rights are all self-evident. As in, we don't need a constitution to define what life, simply and only, is about.

So, the question is really not a matter of privacy... but what is private?

Purple underwear.

Why do I have a right to wear purple underwear (assuming I'm not in boot camp, that is)? Because you don't know I'm wearing purple underwear, that's why; and my choice of underwear will never affect you (assuming I'm not in a lockeroom, that is).

I have an indisputable right to privacy concerning my underwear choices... as long as I keep my pants on.

So that means I define private as any action that cannot reasonably be casually seen by others, and cannot demonstrably affect others positively or negatively. Therefore, I believe that you have a right to do anything you like that (a) nobody can see you doing unless they go out of their way to see it, and (b) can not possibly affect other people directly or indirectly (NB: assuming they never see it) and their life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, comfort, peace of mind, or general ability to live their lives.

Now, I'm sure you could come up with all kinds of evil examples of "things you can do in your bedroom" where my rule would apply, such as shooting up heroin, commiting suicide, or skinning cats.

Ahh... but I could come back and say that your cancer diagnosis directly affects your employer. If you are a senior executive of a company and only have 6 months to live, that certainly is something that affects your company's life. It most certainly affects your family's ability to pursue happiness, comfort, et cetera. Abortion obviously affects a future somebody, which is a more ephemeral but certainly not unreasonable point.

That exactly is the problem with the right to privacy: It gives you a right to do things that every person should have a right to do... but then some. More problematic is that certain private situations may or may not be private, depending on the situation.

Anyway, I threw this post up as a tutorial to you, and as a self-debate for me. I do that a lot, and take pride in it: When I started writing this post, I was 100% supportive of the right to privacy. Now, I'm not so sure... mabye 95%.