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Conservatives are fond of reminding us all that the Constitution of the United States, in its actual text, contains no reference whatsoever to any right of citizens to privacy. Usually these reminders are given in an attempt to justify the USA Patriot Act's extension, overturning Roe v. Wade, snooping on our library book checkouts and video rentals, tapping our phones or some other right-wing-desired infringement on personal liberty.
Since there seem to be movements afoot these days for amending the country's founding blueprint to promote just about every other cause under the sun -- prohibitions of abortion and same-sex marriage, gun owners' absolute freedom to arm themselves, protection of property owners from seizure of their lands by government, etc. -- why not rectify this glaring omission on the part of our Founding Fathers once and for all? Let's enact a Privacy Amendment to the Constitution.
This 28th Amendment's language would have to be wrangled out by better constitutional scholars than I, but the basic text might be something like this: "The right of all law-abiding citizens of the United States to complete privacy in their persons, homes, businesses, property and affairs shall not be infringed in any way by any office or agency of the Government of the United States, or of any of its constituent State or local governments, except where true and just need for such infringement shall be demonstrated by said office or agency before a court of law."
With a Privacy Amendment passed by Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states, Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas and other precedents based on the right to privacy could no longer be challenged on the basis of the Constitution's lack of same. Citizens whose privacy has been unjustly invaded by government would have a sounder basis on which to protest and challenge the violations in court, as would law enforcement to prosecute officials who commit them. And maybe, just maybe, law-and-order-minded legislators, regulators, judges and activists whose zeal gets a tad out of hand might think twice before jeopardizing the civil liberties of us all for the sake of nailing the criminal few.
Write, call, fax or e-mail your Senators and Representative now to demand that they introduce a bill proposing a Privacy Amendment, and the White House to demand that President Bush sign it and send it to the states for ratification. And conservatives who claim to be motivated by principled desire to get government out of people’s private lives should get firmly behind it. Two and a quarter centuries without a real, Constitutionally protected right to privacy is too long.
Since there seem to be movements afoot these days for amending the country's founding blueprint to promote just about every other cause under the sun -- prohibitions of abortion and same-sex marriage, gun owners' absolute freedom to arm themselves, protection of property owners from seizure of their lands by government, etc. -- why not rectify this glaring omission on the part of our Founding Fathers once and for all? Let's enact a Privacy Amendment to the Constitution.
This 28th Amendment's language would have to be wrangled out by better constitutional scholars than I, but the basic text might be something like this: "The right of all law-abiding citizens of the United States to complete privacy in their persons, homes, businesses, property and affairs shall not be infringed in any way by any office or agency of the Government of the United States, or of any of its constituent State or local governments, except where true and just need for such infringement shall be demonstrated by said office or agency before a court of law."
With a Privacy Amendment passed by Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states, Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas and other precedents based on the right to privacy could no longer be challenged on the basis of the Constitution's lack of same. Citizens whose privacy has been unjustly invaded by government would have a sounder basis on which to protest and challenge the violations in court, as would law enforcement to prosecute officials who commit them. And maybe, just maybe, law-and-order-minded legislators, regulators, judges and activists whose zeal gets a tad out of hand might think twice before jeopardizing the civil liberties of us all for the sake of nailing the criminal few.
Write, call, fax or e-mail your Senators and Representative now to demand that they introduce a bill proposing a Privacy Amendment, and the White House to demand that President Bush sign it and send it to the states for ratification. And conservatives who claim to be motivated by principled desire to get government out of people’s private lives should get firmly behind it. Two and a quarter centuries without a real, Constitutionally protected right to privacy is too long.
