From: luis terrassa <luiste@prw.net>
  To  : <cpc@emoglen.law.columbia.edu>
  Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 03:13:48 -0500

Re: interaction of new technologies and privacy

It is not a matter of privacy needing affirmative government 
protection, I don't think many of us would think of government as the 
most trustworthy guardian of our private lives...
But I do think there should be no doubt that the Constitution compels 
the government to respect a private sphere by affirmatively requiring 
government to observe certain procedures before violating citizens' 
personal space when it finds what it considers valid reasons to do so.
So, the question of whether privacy is a right guaranteed by the 
Constitution as an affirmative duty of government, though important, 
falls outside of the scope of what we are talking about. The issue is 
not what government should do, but rather what it may not do. There is 
little disagreement about the fact that the Constitution limits what 
the government may do.  In this sense, the task is simpler, as it only 
regards the definition of the scope of those things the government may 
not do, rather than the broader philosophical question of whether there 
is a broader government role in protecting privacy in a more general 
sense.
i believe the point is important, because otherwise we become involved 
in the more abstract debate about reading a right to privacy into the 
Bill of Rights which, important as it is, lacks the solid 
jurisprudential basis that has been built with regard to the 
constitutional limitations on the government's ability to intrude upon 
our private lives.


Luis



-----------------------------------------------------------------
Computers, Privacy, and the Constitution mailing list