This essay examines the right to privacy from three interconnected angles. First, it traces the constitutional basis for privacy, arguing that the concept is implicitly protected through the liberty guarantees of the Preamble and the civil rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Second, it defends privacy as an inalienable right, grounded in the social contract between citizens and government. Third, it evaluates Edward Snowden's disclosure of government surveillance programs, concluding that Snowden acted as a heroic whistleblower rather than a traitor, and that protecting civil liberties must remain a top governmental priority.
The constitutional foundation for the right to privacy is multifaceted. This right is implicit in the right to liberty guaranteed by the document. In particular, privacy is a manifestation of the civil liberties assured to all citizens under the U.S. Constitution. The Preamble makes this clear, stating that the Constitution was created in part to "secure the Blessings of Liberty" (Founding Fathers). Those blessings of liberty quickly become a curse without privacy. If people were able to observe and become aware of everything everyone did, individuals would not truly be free or experiencing a genuine state of liberty. Privacy is therefore implicit in liberty, which is why the constitutional protection of this concept provides the foundation for the right to privacy.
Other parts of the Constitution also provide a foundation for the right to privacy as it relates to civil liberties. Certain amendments in the Bill of Rights were established specifically to ensure civil liberties, and the right to privacy is implicit throughout. For instance, the First Amendment enables the free exercise of religion and freedom of speech. Without privacy, these rights become meaningless. If everyone were privy to everything one said, people would have to considerably limit their speech to avoid offending others or incurring disfavor. There is therefore an element of privacy inherent in freedom of speech, as well as in the freedom to practice religion. The fact that the Constitution specifically enumerates these civil rights means that the right to privacy is foundational to the document itself.
The right to privacy is real, inalienable, and deserves preservation for all citizens. It is one of the more important rights people possess (Doshi) because there are aspects of life that concern only individuals, as opposed to the state designed to protect them. Many facets of a person's preferences and daily activities are simply of no consequence to the public sector and therefore need not be made known to the state or to the general population.
The social contract reinforced by the government requires citizens to obey the law. So long as they do so, the government has mechanisms to punish those who transgress it, thereby protecting law-abiding citizens. Those who choose to obey the law should accordingly have the right to privacy. If what they are doing in their private lives infringes on any legal codes, the government is at liberty to take action. But if no laws are being broken, no one other than the individual — and whoever that individual chooses to inform — should know anything about that person's life.
The Supreme Court has affirmed as much in its rulings on privacy, which is why those decisions merit agreement. The Court's jurisprudence on the subject draws a significant distinction between privacy and legal transgression: if the latter is not involved, what one chooses to do with one's life should remain as private as one wishes it to be.
In retrospect, Edward Snowden appears far more a heroic whistleblower than a traitor who compromised the government's ability to protect its citizens. Snowden provided unequivocal evidence that the government was prying into the private lives of civilians (Frontline). He did so by revealing to the world that fundamental components of everyday electronic communication — specifically email — were being used to monitor the activities of ordinary internet users.
The Snowden case is critically important because it demonstrates the need for limits on government surveillance of civilians in their private lives. His disclosures proved that certain factions within the government held the opposite view — that citizens' privacy rights, rather than government power, should be curtailed. Yet basic civil liberties must remain inviolable. Because the right to privacy is implicit in many of those liberties, Snowden was exposing the government's non-compliance with this principle and the covert manner in which it was flouting basic tenets of privacy (Wired).
The crux of the matter is that, as a society, we should not willingly surrender our liberties in response to the purported threat of international terrorism. Federal entities should protect their citizens while simultaneously respecting those rights. At a minimum, those entities should inform citizens when their communications are susceptible to monitoring. Many people were entirely unaware — until Snowden's revelations — of the government's capacity to monitor emails and other online communications. Protecting the civil liberties of Americans must become the top priority for those who hold the power to infringe upon them.
Protecting the civil liberties of Americans should be the top priority for those who are in positions to infringe upon them. Federal entities must balance national security obligations with a genuine respect for the privacy rights guaranteed — implicitly or explicitly — by the Constitution. The right to privacy is not a peripheral concern but a cornerstone of liberty itself, and its erosion, whether through legislative indifference or covert surveillance, diminishes the freedoms that define a democratic society.
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