Privacy is an American right

Rob Heise
junior, marketing

I was just read a letter by SIUC alumnus Andrew Feltovich that was printed in Monday's edition of Daily Egyptian in which he states that there are no provisions in the U.S. Constitution that guarantee privacy. Therefore, the ACLU's defense of the Roe v. Wade (1973) decision, on the grounds of privacy is irrelevant, and the ACLU "?makes constitutional arguments when the document is completely silent."

It should be noted that the 4th, 9th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution have been interpreted to offer guarantees of the right of privacy. This guarantee of privacy has been upheld in a number of Supreme Court cases, thus creating common law provisions, in addition to legislative and Constitutional law.

The 4th Amendment, citizens are protected from unreasonable search and seizure. The 9th Amendment states that rights guaranteed by the Constitution, will not disrespect other rights held by citizens. The Due Process clause of 14th Amendments guarantees that all citizens of the United States are entitled to equal protection under the law, and shall not be denied the right to life, liberty or property without due process of law.

In Mapp v. Ohio (1961), it is noted that the Fourth Amendment creates a "...right to privacy, no less important than any other right carefully and particularly reserved to the people."

This decision makes the 9th and 14th Amendments relevant to the idea of privacy, and was evoked by the Court for the 1963 decision of Griswold v. Connecticut.

In the Court's decision of Griswold, which tested the Constitutionality of a Connecticut law that banned the use of contraceptives and was a basis for Roe v. Wade, Justice Douglas, wrote in the majority opinion of the Constitutional issue of privacy, "The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees."

In a more recent case that applied the Griswold precedent, Lawrence et al. v. Texas (2003), Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, noted, "[I]n our tradition the State is not omnipresent in the home." Justice Kennedy continued, "We conclude the case should be resolved by determining whether the petitioners were free as adults to engage in the private conduct in the exercise of their liberty under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution."

In the end, the Court reversed a decision that sexual conduct between consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes is not subject to the prosecution by the law whose jurisdiction the home is under, and, in fact, is protected by the liberty provision of the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment.

So you see, Mr. Feltovich, that privacy is, and has been, a right that the United States offers to its citizens through both Constitutional law and common law. And without much effort, you can easily find laws relating to privacy that are offered via legislative law (see the do-not-call registry).

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