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The Vexatious Issue of Privacy
| Article
# : |
18435 |
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Section : |
EDITORIAL
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1990 |
665 Words |
| Author
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Morton A. Kaplan
Editor and Publisher |
Louis XIV did not have the concern for privacy - the subject debated at length in this month's Currents in Modern Though - that ordinary Americans have. He performed his acts of elimination in full view of those in his palace, while his courtiers used the stairwells as toilets. Nor today do mainland Chinese place much value on privacy. Village billboards announce who is pregnant or who has been convicted of a crime.
On the other hand, the old English belief that a man's home is his castle underlies the American constitutional restriction on illegal searches on seizures. The rule that a wife cannot be forced to testify against her husband or that a priest cannot be made to violate the confessional helps to define an important, if less than universal, view of personhood and society. The Fifth Amendment restriction against forcing an individual to incriminate himself is an important limit on the intrusion of the state into the life of the individual.
Although I oppose strongly the Court's invention of new rights of privacy, and even more of a generalized right to privacy, I do not doubt for a moment that particular private rights are the foundation of a liberal government and a free society. The great problems, apart from the occasional fanciful activities of the Court, are to determine which private rights are important and under what conditions, for there always will be important trade-offs in making these determinations.
Certainly we value the right of parents to bring their children up without interference by the state, but we do override that right in cases of abuse or even when, for instance, despite parental objections on religious
... (1998 of 3945 Characters)
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