Today, the right to privacy is misunderstood by the masses, many members of Congress, and it would seem, by the Supreme Court. Much of this has to do with compulsory schooling and indoctrination. As Dr. Walter E. Williams pointed out, “Many of our nation’s colleges and universities have become cesspools of indoctrination, intolerance, academic dishonesty and the new racism. . . The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind.”
Therefore, if you find yourself not understanding the true meaning of the right to privacy, it is not your fault; even Chief Justice John Roberts was indoctrinated at Harvard Law School by the likes of Professor Laurence Tribe, who believes the Constitution to be “imperfect, and . . . highly objectionable” and referred to the Founders as a “highly limited constituency of white property owners . . . with whom most [Americans] have only the most limited link (if any at all), [who decided] to limit our future freedom to exercise power.” Tribe used “esoteric hermeneutics” to convince his students that the Founders limited our future freedom, which they did not; the Founders attempted to limit the future ability of the power-elites, like Tribe, using government, to restrict individual freedom. (See, The United States Government is Illegitimate, currently available, and Take Politics Out of the Supreme Court and Restore Freedom, which will be available from Amazon very soon).
Our constitutional right to privacy is only against government, “the right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized man.” (Justice Brandeis). We do not have a constitutional right to privacy against “private actors” like the press, other individuals, and businesses, e.g. Facebook, Google, Amazon, ad infinitum. The reason for this is that Government has the ability, through force, to take our lives or incarcerate us and destroy our liberty; and, take our property.
Whereas, for the most part, private actors tend to use our personal information to provide us the products and services we desire. And, if they harm us in any way, we can sue them and receive financial compensation for the harm they do to us.
The right to privacy against government is part of our British heritage as explained by Lord Camden in 1029 (Entick v. Carrington, 19 How. St. Tr. 1029): “The principles laid down in this opinion affect the very essence of constitutional liberty and security. They reach farther than the concrete form of the case then before the court, . . . they apply to all invasions on the part of government and its employees of the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life . . .”
In 1798, Justice Chase, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, understood that the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights (first ten amendments), applied to the federal and state governments. He understood the right to privacy against government, “the right to be let alone.” In Calder v. Bull he stated, “There are acts which the federal, or state legislatures cannot do, without exceeding their authority. [An] act of the legislature (for I cannot call it a law), contrary to the great first principles [e.g., “the right to be let alone”] . . . cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative power. [A] law that destroys or impairs . . . private contracts of citizens . . . or a law that takes property from A and gives it to B . . . is against all reason and justice . . . [and] altogether inadmissible in our free republican governments.”
In 1886 Justice Bradley (Boyd v. US) struck down a tax law as unconstitutional because he also understood the right to privacy, “the right to be let alone” from government intrusion: “. . . any compulsory discovery by extorting the party’s oath, or compelling the production of his private books and papers to convict him of crime, or to forfeit his property, is contrary to the principles of a free government. It is abhorrent to the instincts of an Englishman; it is abhorrent to the instincts of an American. It may suit the purposes of despotic power; but it cannot abide the pure atmosphere of political liberty and personal freedom.”
Even though the Supreme Court has ignored the true meaning of the Constitution as understood by Justices Chase and Bradley, and have purposely reinterpreted the written and properly amended Constitution that resides under glass in Washington, D.C., Justice Brandeis’ dissenting opinion in Olmstead v. U.S. became the rationale for the abortion case, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). In Olmstead, Justice Brandeis wrote, “The makers of our Constitution understood to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed [e.g., passing legislation requiring disclosure of financial transactions and private books, invoices, and papers], must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The use, as evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth.”
Before proceeding with our analysis of Roe v. Wade and the decision allowing the right to “an abortion [under certain circumstances] free of interference by the State”, it is important to first understand what our rights are and the limitations that are attached to them. As set forth in the Declaration of Independence, we have “unalienable Rights” to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness or property. Within these broad categories of unlimited individual rights, which were included in the Constitution, falls the right to privacy; to be free from Government interference in our day-to-day lives. However, our “unalienable Rights” come with a very specific limitation, as explained by Thomas Jefferson in his definition of “rightful liberty” as “unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others—I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”
For example, if two people enter a room and close the door behind them; and both leave happy and contented, it shouldn’t matter what they did willingly behind closed doors. They both have exercised their right to privacy and possibly other rights in their pursuit of happiness. That is, under the Constitution, Government at any level, has no legitimate power to interfere in the affairs of consenting adults. Unfortunately, because of the reinterpretation of the Constitution, this is not always the case, especially when it involves commerce, economic rights, the right to earn a living, contracts, private property, and the right of self-defense. However, for purposes of this analysis, we shall assume that if two people enter a room and both exit without being harmed, the right to privacy has been properly exercised by all parties involved.
On the other hand, if only one person leaves happy, while the other was assaulted or battered or unable to leave because of homicide, the person leaving that room, without injury, no longer has an unconditional right to privacy because the assault, battery or homicide, violated the right of the person harmed. As Jefferson so stated, our liberty, our right to privacy, our right to pursue happiness, stops when we interfere with another person’s rights.
In 1973, a 7-to-2 Supreme Court decision (Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)) established a legal precedent that women can have an abortion, free from government interference, because of their “right to privacy.” According to Justice Blackmun, who authored the majority opinion, “This right to privacy, . . . is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” As discussed supra, the “right to privacy” does not allow anyone to kill a human life; therefore, the “right to privacy” should have been irrelevant. The question or issue in this case should have been, when does human life begin? But Justice Blackmun’s response was: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained [in] medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” He goes on to state that the belief of the Stoics was that “life does not begin until live birth.” Actually, I thought we were more advanced in science and medicine than the ancients?!
Furthermore, the claim that we did not know when life begins back in 1973 seems most likely false, and such a statement would be “even more nonsensical today.” There should be no “right to privacy” when it comes to abortion. The question or issue is, when does human life begin? Once life begins, no one should have any right to terminate that life unless the health of the mother is at risk.
Today, with medical science and technology and assuming we properly educate our youth (e.g., contraceptives, morning-after pills, various stages of pregnancy, how abortions are performed, adoption alternatives, etc.), there should be very little need for abortions. The problem is that abortion is now a big business which generates $1-Billion or more each year in revenue, including the sale of the remains (body-parts) to biotech companies for research purposes.
Because of the huge amount of money involved, including donations that go to politicians, it is highly unlikely that all those involved in the abortion industry would do the right thing.
As Americans, with “unalienable Rights” to “Life,” “at [this] point in the development of man’s knowledge” we must “resolve [this] difficult question” as to when life begins. Furthermore, the Supreme Court needs to step up, do the right thing in accordance with the Constitution: and, the issue of when life begins should apply to all States equally, since the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
After all, the only purpose of a legitimate government is to protect the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness or property. Will the Supreme Court rise above the politics and decide this difficult question of when life begins, based upon medical and scientific findings and protect the most vulnerable, the unborn and newly born human lives?
Going forward, will the Supreme Court start properly interpreting the right to privacy, the right to be secure in one’s private books, papers and effects (Fourth Amendment) and the right not to be a witness against oneself (Fifth Amendment), by striking down the tax legislation requiring Americans to open up their books and financial records for the IRS; and striking down the legislation that requires banks and other financial institutions to spy on their customers and provide suspicious activity reports to the IRS without their customer’s knowledge? After all, that is what Justice Bradley did back in 1886. That’s what the Constitution still requires today; the one that sits under glass in Washington D.C.
Dum Spiro, spero—While I breathe, I hope.
Slainte mhath,
Robert G. Beard Jr., C.P.A., C.G.M.A., J.D., LL.M.
