Right To Privacy Pros And Cons

The Fourteenth amendment to US Constitution guarantees the right to privacy along with other fundamental human rights. On the other hand, the Constitution does not review privacy as an explicit human right. The purpose of right to privacy is to protect the privacy of homes, beliefs, the private lives of individuals and their professions. The right defends US citizens from governmental interference into their private lives and ensures confidentiality of personal data. It is also an element of numerous legal traditions that may restrict a government or a private party from carrying out certain actions that threaten the privacy of an individual. At around mid-2013 an ex-NSA, Edward Snowden, made top secret revelations that rattled major super powers and awakened the debate on the right …show more content…
In addition to the First, Third, and Fourth amendments, the Supreme Court in various instances held that certain privacy rights hover around the most precise guarantees contained in the Bill of Rights. In numerous cases, ranging from the choice of school, language, marriage partner, the use of contraceptives, etc the Court has been consistent in implying that the Constitution protects the right to make a private choice. In Griswold v. Connecticut, Justice Douglas was emphatic that a state’s ban on contraceptives amounted to a violation of the right to marital privacy (Greene 721). Similarly, in Roe v. Wade, the court maintained that the right to privacy extended to a woman’s right to procure an abortion (Garrow 58). The import of Griswold and Roe is that privacy rights are also libertarian claims. This implies that the right to privacy is one of the liberties guaranteed to American citizens by the Fourteenth Amendment. Its identification as a liberty claim means that federal governments and states cannot violate this understanding of privacy without infringing the clause that calls for due process for the