Right To Privacy Case Study

Right to Privacy Case Study

[Author]

[Institution]

Author Note

Right to Privacy Case Study

According to Paul Freund, a Harvard Law Professor, “the Court should never be influenced by the weather of the day but inevitably they will be influenced by the climate of the era.” There are sound words that continue to hold more and more precedence as the time moves on and we enter an era whether laws put into place, and practices considered the norm, a century ago no longer hold water. This is because changing times has highlighted new, debatable issues that need to be addressed in a manner that not only solves the problem but also sets the right precedent for future generations.

One such issue is the right to privacy and how the US constitution deals with it. Firstly, the US constitution contains no express right to privacy for an individual. One can argue that the Bills of Rights did safeguard certain aspects of privacy, but it is still severely lacking. For instance, the first amendment addresses the privacy of beliefs, the third amendment provides privacy of home, fourth amendment against unlawful search and seizures and the fifth amendment against self-incrimination ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"R06gK1L9","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Berkin, 2016)","plainCitation":"(Berkin, 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":566,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5VyEEXyp/items/HKR8HKGB"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5VyEEXyp/items/HKR8HKGB"],"itemData":{"id":566,"type":"article-journal","title":"The Bill of Rights: The Fight to Secure America's Liberties","container-title":"Journal of American History","page":"184-185","volume":"103","issue":"1","abstract":"This is a concise, well-written, study of the adoption of the Bill of Rights from 1787 through the ratification of ten of the twelve proposed amendments in 1792. Its focus is primarily on the debate in the new Congress, which follows James Madison's relentless effort to have a bill of rights adopted during the first session, but it also highlights the Antifederalist responses. Antifederalists continuously made efforts to supplement Madison's emphasis on individual liberties by calling for a second constitutional convention, offering amendments to shear powers from the national government and restoring them to the states, and reintroducing the term expressly, which worked so well to restrict the power of the national government to the benefit of the states under Article 2 of the Articles of Confederation. During the first Congress, the controversies that had been sublimated in the state ratification conventions by voting for or against the Constitution were revitalized.","DOI":"10.1093/jahist/jaw051","ISSN":"0021-8723","journalAbbreviation":"Journal of American History","author":[{"family":"Berkin","given":"Carol"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",6,1]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Berkin, 2016). While all these amendments in bills of rights provide us with some semblance of privacy, it is severely lacking in other areas. This is covered by the ninth amendment, which states that “count of specific rights in the Bill of Rights should not be understood to deny or deride different rights held by the general population” ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"OGhwdrYR","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(McConnell, 2009)","plainCitation":"(McConnell, 2009)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":567,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5VyEEXyp/items/3SJN43Z9"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5VyEEXyp/items/3SJN43Z9"],"itemData":{"id":567,"type":"article-journal","title":"The Ninth Amendment in Light of Text and History","container-title":"Cato Sup. Ct. Rev.","page":"13","author":[{"family":"McConnell","given":"Michael W."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2009"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (McConnell, 2009). However, even with the ninth amendment in place, the law enforcement agencies still had the right to access our private and confidential information, however and whenever they wanted. All they had to state was that our personal records were needed for an investigation and they could have access to them. Back in the day when everyone uses landline telephones, this was not an issue. However, with changing times and the availability of cellphones, digital privacy became a major concern, especially after the Snowden revelations ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"M9CeqbhK","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Gellman, Blake, & Miller, 2013)","plainCitation":"(Gellman, Blake, & Miller, 2013)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":569,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5VyEEXyp/items/85DE29K5"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5VyEEXyp/items/85DE29K5"],"itemData":{"id":569,"type":"webpage","title":"Edward Snowden comes forward as source of NSA leaks - The Washington Post","URL":"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/intelligence-leaders-push-back-on-leakers-media/2013/06/09/fff80160-d122-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html","author":[{"family":"Gellman","given":"Barton"},{"family":"Blake","given":"Aaron"},{"family":"Miller","given":"Greg"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2013",6,9]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",8,17]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Gellman, Blake, & Miller, 2013).

Thus, in a landmark ruling by the U.S. supreme court stated that authorities and the government could not access an individual’s cellphone location history without a due cause and a search warrant ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"PbVh0eqi","properties":{"formattedCitation":"({\\i{}US v. Carpenter}, 2016)","plainCitation":"(US v. Carpenter, 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":568,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5VyEEXyp/items/HB46RIWV"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5VyEEXyp/items/HB46RIWV"],"itemData":{"id":568,"type":"legal_case","title":"US v. Carpenter","page":"880","volume":"819","issued":{"date-parts":[["2016"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (US v. Carpenter, 2016). In 2011, four men were arrested for their part in an armed robbery. One of the four men confessed to having given the FBI the cellphone details of the other three men, the information used by FBI to obtain their records. On the information received, the men were charged for aiding and abetting a robbery. However, the government’s warrantless access to personal records was recognized by the supreme court as the violation of the individual’s fourth amendment rights. This ruling was very narrow and did not address several significant issues, such as real-time cell site location information and information downloaded by the tower that the cellphone is connected to. However, it overturned a number of laws created and put in place in the past century and served as one of many steps towards ensuring digital and personal privacy for an individual, especially from government authorities ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"5W7lDobB","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Liptak, 2018)","plainCitation":"(Liptak, 2018)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":571,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5VyEEXyp/items/RH65EUSF"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/5VyEEXyp/items/RH65EUSF"],"itemData":{"id":571,"type":"article-newspaper","title":"In Ruling on Cellphone Location Data, Supreme Court Makes Statement on Digital Privacy","container-title":"The New York Times","section":"U.S.","source":"NYTimes.com","abstract":"The 5-to-4 decision, in which the court said a warrant was generally needed to collect troves of the data, has implications for all kinds of personal information held by third parties.","URL":"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/us/politics/supreme-court-warrants-cell-phone-privacy.html","ISSN":"0362-4331","language":"en-US","author":[{"family":"Liptak","given":"Adam"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2018",6,22]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",8,17]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Liptak, 2018).

Given the fact that the 21st century is hailed as the era of the internet, digital privacy has given rise to a new set of debates. We put plenty of our personal information online at our own discretion, we still hold the right to ensure that the law enforcement agencies and any third-parties are still protecting our privacy without giving rise to a civil argument over the significance of personal privacy and protection. In a perfect world, we would not have to work for something that should be our birthright, to have complete autonomy over our lives. However, we do not live in a perfect world, and ensuring that we keep ourselves and our loved ones safe is a struggle we need to work for every single day of our lives.

References

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Berkin, C. (2016). The Bill of Rights: The Fight to Secure America’s Liberties. Journal of American History, 103(1), 184–185. https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaw051

Gellman, B., Blake, A., & Miller, G. (2013, June 9). Edward Snowden comes forward as source of NSA leaks—The Washington Post. Retrieved August 17, 2019, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/intelligence-leaders-push-back-on-leakers-media/2013/06/09/fff80160-d122-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html

Liptak, A. (2018, June 22). In Ruling on Cellphone Location Data, Supreme Court Makes Statement on Digital Privacy. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/us/politics/supreme-court-warrants-cell-phone-privacy.html

McConnell, M. W. (2009). The Ninth Amendment in Light of Text and History. Cato Sup. Ct. Rev., 13.

US v. Carpenter., (2016).