Our right to "Privacy". Where Is it guaranteed?

thesmokingman:

Where were we ever guaranteed privacy?

I have a proposal to make which you can ponder on to your heart's content. Firstly, let me remind you of certain words written as a declaration at the beginning of the Constitution...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

Okay. 'Unalienable Rights'. What could those two words pertain to? Prima facie they simply refer to rights that cannot be separated from man. They are rights that 'nature' (Creator - if you want) endows in man as part of his life existence. You could use a different term than 'rights', you could use the term 'condition/s', and privacy is a natural condition of man, not of body, but of mind.

Nature has endowed us with a private life. All aspects of our mentation, thoughts, thinking, intention, motivation, reason, etc, are all privvy and personal to each of us alone, and to no one else. Only when we act on them do they become publicly accessible, because how one acts can be an indicator of intention and reason, and yet even then, they can still remain private and secure in our minds.

Why would nature endow us with privacy if it wasn't an essential aspect of being alive? To enjoy 'life' and 'liberty', and to pursue 'happiness', we must be free and unfettered from external influence and coercion. Each of must be sovereign over our own mind and body, and by that association, the things we come to own.

Privacy, by this understanding, becomes an unspoken 'unalienable right' as remarked upon in the Constitution, one that cannot be separated from each person, and as government is instituted to uphold these unalienable (natural) rights through an agreed consent of the governed, it cannot for any reason deny them to any individual. Privacy cannot be touched by any government as it is a natural condition, and therefore, an unalienable right that was recognised and fought for, and won in understanding. It's not even an amendment, so it cannot be amended or stripped away from the Constitution.

Privacy is not about having something to hide, but about a natural condition you cannot separate from life itself.

originally posted by: OneManArmy
Here apparently...

Source

I will have to look into the original source of privacy laws, I suspect its the Magna Carta but may be mistaken.
A little reading is required.

I dont know how I forgot about it, but in the UK the data protection act is suppose to protect our privacy.
That has never prevented our information being sold on to private interests though. Traffic accident details being passed to insurance companies for instance. It doesnt seem to have prevented civil servants leaving huge databases of private personal information on public transport either.

If you just go to the wiki for privacy law, there is a lot of information. Also you need to see the information relevant to whichever country you are in.

en.wikipedia.org...

You have no effective privacy law in the UK. In the UK courts can and have ruled that a person must turn over the password to their documents or goto prison until they do. This is why it's quite popular among those in the UK that have things they wish to remain hidden to use TrueCrypt with hidden partitions. That way the courts can compel them to turn over the password to the locked drive, but they never find out about the hidden one to demand that password as well.

originally posted by: elysiumfire
thesmokingman:

Where were we ever guaranteed privacy?

I have a proposal to make which you can ponder on to your heart's content. Firstly, let me remind you of certain words written as a declaration at the beginning of the Constitution...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

Okay. 'Unalienable Rights'. What could those two words pertain to? Prima facie they simply refer to rights that cannot be separated from man. They are rights that 'nature' (Creator - if you want) endows in man as part of his life existence. You could use a different term than 'rights', you could use the term 'condition/s', and privacy is a natural condition of man, not of body, but of mind.

Nature has endowed us with a private life. All aspects of our mentation, thoughts, thinking, intention, motivation, reason, etc, are all privvy and personal to each of us alone, and to no one else. Only when we act on them do they become publicly accessible, because how one acts can be an indicator of intention and reason, and yet even then, they can still remain private and secure in our minds.

Why would nature endow us with privacy if it wasn't an essential aspect of being alive? To enjoy 'life' and 'liberty', and to pursue 'happiness', we must be free and unfettered from external influence and coercion. Each of must be sovereign over our own mind and body, and by that association, the things we come to own.

Privacy, by this understanding, becomes an unspoken 'unalienable right' as remarked upon in the Constitution, one that cannot be separated from each person, and as government is instituted to uphold these unalienable (natural) rights through an agreed consent of the governed, it cannot for any reason deny them to any individual. Privacy cannot be touched by any government as it is a natural condition, and therefore, an unalienable right that was recognised and fought for, and won in understanding. It's not even an amendment, so it cannot be amended or stripped away from the Constitution.

Privacy is not about having something to hide, but about a natural condition you cannot separate from life itself.

Beautiful. That does seem to sum up the constitutional argument fairly well. Bill of Rights says(quoting earlier post):
Article 4
Right of search and seizure regulated

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

"persons, houses, papers, and effects" sounds pretty clear cut to me. Problem is most of us have entered into contracts during our internet activities that trump those rights, as Aazadan said a page back. Reminds me of the South Park "Humanicentipad" episode(Vanilla Paste! Vanilla Paste!). Few of us actually read those things, we just sign away our rights by clicking "I Agree". It seems that technically, under the law, we usually tend to screw ourselves. If you don't agree to any f'd up contracts as a part of your accessing the internet(I suppose its possible, but good luck with that one), well then that changes the picture somewhat, and I suppose you might have a more reasonable expectation of privacy(even though you're probably still transmitting through a public utility at some point). A private network, for instance, would probably be a different legal animal.
Warantless searches, arrests, and surveillance, however, will always be unconstitutional, no matter how many anti-terrorism bills are passed or slanted judges appointed.

a reply to: engineercutout

warantless searches and arrests, will maybe stay unconstitutional, for you guys and maybe we have different laws, but you got no privacy, as soon as you enter a public place, or someone notices you and gets suspicious.
Ah remembering privacy... But it's a myth. A phone number of someone under watch and your f'd, a visit at someones place, who is watched and that's already enough reason to go through your electronical-world interface devises.
Also private people can acces your laptop-cam, or kinect and microphones, private people can track your phone and if you got an intranet with cams in your house with internet updating and stuff, you already invited the whole world into your home...

a reply to: thesmokingman

I mean, I for one could care less what the government/NSA see on my internet activity, I am not doing anything illegal.

But what if one day soon one of those things became illegal?

That's part of the point.

The other point is: WHY IS IT ANY OF THEIR BUSINESS?!

originally posted by: Liquesence
a reply to: thesmokingman

I mean, I for one could care less what the government/NSA see on my internet activity, I am not doing anything illegal.

But what if one day soon one of those things became illegal?

That's part of the point.

The other point is: WHY IS IT ANY OF THEIR BUSINESS?!

''

I suspect that one's viewpoint about his comes down to whether or not one identifies with the aggressor (ie. in this case, the government). Those who aren't concerned about being spied-on identify with those doing the spying and, as such, can't imagine this being turned against them. In fact, they think it's being done on their behalf and for their good. Historically, some people have not been bothered when groups to which they don't belong have had their rights abridged. It's only when it's too late and they suddenly find themselves included in a group whose rights are being abridged that they wake up.

Guaranteed in your head

a reply to: Peeple

I know I know its like why do I feel like all the freedoms I've taken for granted are slowly melting away...oh wait...maybe its because...well, you know...THEY ARE!
Even more seriously though, I agree. Privacy as we once knew it is going away. "Vigilance is the price of freedom" is what Gerry Spence wrote in his book "From Freedom To Slavery". He wrote that those who understand the price of freedom understand that it must be defended vigilantly, or it will be taken. I fear we have not been vigilant enough in the selection of our leaders.
Getting informed at the local level on the regional elected officials might be a way to help counteract this, but be careful! Politics is a dirty business. I know that the culture of law enforcement seems to vary considerably by municipality. I've lived in areas where LEO's were in everyone's business constantly, revenuing and all crooked about it. I've also lived in areas where they hardly look twice at anyone who isn't just seriously screwing up. Often those areas aren't even that far apart.
I defenitely think we're moving the wrong way on the national level.

a reply to: engineercutout

Here's the thing though, no ISP's offer internet service at those terms. We do have an out for now though in that we can encrypt our data. Legally you are considered to have a reasonable expectation of privacy if your data is encrypted and not posted publicly. This extends to things such as cloud services. The problem is that the government has taken the route that we only have an expectation of privacy from other citizens or governments, our government has backdoors to get into our data. They have placed themselves above the law.

a reply to: ketsuko

Ever notice they are trying to phase those out?

Can they actually do away with a primary system drive? Wouldnt it be slow to load all your programs from the cloud. There will for the foreseeable future be a hard disk attached to your pc. Who in their right mind would keep inventions or serious proprietary research in the "cloud"

a reply to: Aazadan

What about this alternate network popping up in places like Seattle(?) area, any promise there?

originally posted by: engineercutout
a reply to: Aazadan

What about this alternate network popping up in places like Seattle(?) area, any promise there?

Which network? People have tried things like Meshnets but they're fairly local. In theory they could work great in a large city, but their communications range would be limited to just that large city and they could still be infiltrated.

a reply to: Aazadan

Yes, Meshnets, that's what I was thinking of. I suppose we might see some expectation of net privacy evolve from that one day, if it is done properly that is. I'd guess you're still giving that up when you enter most sites, though, per their terms and conditions, even if you did have a private network to enter them from. I suppose if we saw an evolution of sites with T&C's that were more respecting of a person's privacy, we could see a shift to a more private web landscape. It could happen...

a reply to: thesmokingman

The government loves your state of mind. Don't expect a prize though.

As long as big companies own the wires and/or transmission systems or it's sent wireless, the NSA is going to get it, legally or not.

We've made it to the era of 'too big to jail' and 'you are afraid of terrorists aren't you'.

While it seems to be well established that public communications are just that PUBLIC......it's completely different to monitor clearly intended PRIVATE communications and activities on a private home commuter. It's very creepy that technology and "profiling" people probably began with business's trying to target specific market demographics, and it was pretty darn effective actually......the Ad's I receive on-line are almost uncanny in how accurately they know my sex, age, interests, etc. LOL.....but here's the thing ....other then doing some work related transactions on-line, I never shop personally on-line ?

Anyways it's really incredible to think about how old Edward B and "marketing" changed the World......This became politics and governments way of operating too........basically using human emotions and manipulation to convince us to "buy" crap we don't need !