One of my teachers asked us last class if we have an absolute right to privacy, and I instantly thought of course we do, but in really thinking about it some more I don’t think that is the case. If you think about it we have always already given away some of our privacy at birth. Doctors know your birthday, your blood type, have copies of hand and foot prints. Then the government has to get in on it by giving you a social security card and have you registered as a US citizen. From there they follow you along and make sure you go to school and… etc etc etc.
There is such a thing as a right to privacy, but I don’t think that continues into an absolute right to privacy. You can still keep who you’re dating, your sexual orientation, what classes you are taking, what you like on your latte, or even if you like latte, all of these you can keep secret. But when it comes to some detailed personal information the government knows. Now does the government really have the right to this information? Do you truly have the absolute right to privacy?
According to this USNews Article the government doesn’t even feel you have the absolute right to privacy with your own data. This is an age old question though. If the government has rights to some data why can’t they have rights to all of it? Well for one they shouldn’t. Telephone calls and other things they should never have had access to anyway. They say it protects people but rarely has this data trolling actually helped anyone. So we should be allowed to have absolute right to privacy, but we give up a few of those rights in order to protect people. But it’s always a constant struggle of how many of those rights we still have.
Take the article mentioned above, the government is upset that Apple and Google are setting up protections on peoples smart phones so they can keep their data private, as it should be. They are upset though because they feel they should have rights to it. Like a search warrant can give you the right to search someones place, they feel they should have a right to data as well. But in reality if these were smart terrorists there wouldn’t be anything on any electronic device that they own that would link back to themselves, not that I would think most criminals are smart, but I have heard drug dealers get cheap pay by the minute phones and throw them away when they think they are being pursued. So why wouldn’t terrorists or others do the same? Why would criminals be stupid enough to be walking around with something that would instantly incriminate them anyway.
Point is, which seemed to go off on a tangent for a bit, that no in order to protect ourselves and our loved ones we don’t have an absolute right to privacy, but that doesn’t not mean we have no rights to privacy. Don’t get me started on people willingly giving up those rights with Facebook and Twitter and such XD
Reference: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2014/10/20/you-have-no-absolute-right-to-privacy-including-in-your-data-encryption