The U.S. Public Policy on the “Right to Privacy”

Introduction

The right to privacy is important. In a democracy, it is a concept we take for granted and it seems so obvious that it has almost ceased to even be obvious. Think about it. This concept is behind the secret ballot, confidentiality in the patient-physician relationship, professional confidentiality which binds the attorney-client privilege, the law governing wiretaps, the concept that our home is our castle and the relentlessness with which our society struggle for individual autonomy (Petronio 218).

Policy

The right to privacy is not the politically correct flavour of the month. It is a fundamental human value that a former judge of the Supreme Court of Canada described as "the heart of liberty in a modern state." This is not an individual right to be enjoyed at the expense of society. Respect for privacy is an integral part of this mixture based on mutual respect that holds together a free society” (Petronio 54).

Goals

The privacy issue of the delimitation of its borders is one of the most widely discussed also in the common law system: it may be impossible to summarize in a single article in a comprehensive way all aspects related to it, but instead may be interesting to analyze the specific one of notable case in the U.S. Supreme Court, mindful that it is just that, one of the many aspects under which it presents the analysis of the right to privacy in the American system (Margulis 411).

In its ruling of 1986, Bowers v. Hardwick, the Court wanted to bring a significant narrowing of the concept of privacy. In previous years, especially in the judgments on abortion and contraception, it had in fact been a gradual expansion of this right which contrasts with the reversal of judicial interpretation contained in the opinion of Judge (Petronio 60). Nevertheless, the Supreme Court ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick, did not want to go that route, but by declaring constitutional the state of Georgia, has put limits on citizens' right to privacy. To do this the Court intended in a very restrictive law in question, stating that the resolution of the case was necessary to determine whether they were traced and therefore protected in the Constitution a right "to engage homosexual sodomy." This approach is opposite to that date dissenting opinion by Justice Blackmun's view that the law in question is the classic "right to ...