Balancing Privacy and Other Rights
 The
Challenge
Santa Clara University Philosophy Professor Michael Meyer says, "Human
beings are entitled to a basic respect, which requires some attention
to their privacy." But privacy is not an absolute right. It must
be balanced with other important values such as security and free speech.
What's at Stake
Privacy concerns have been at the heart of new HIPAA regulations, which
protect medical information; "Do Not Call" legislation which
allows consumers to take themselves off telemarketers' lists, and the
contested California financial privacy law, which prevents banks, insurance
companies, and other financial institutions from sharing or selling their
personal information. But sometimes, the need to protect free speech puts
limits on privacy. For example, political and charitable organizations
are exempted from Do Not Call lists. Also, the federal Patriot Act, passed
to address national security, contains provisions that some believe infringe
on individual privacy. We need to better define the circumstances under
which we want to limit the right to privacy.
Critical Questions
- The federal government has used its expanded authority under the Patriot
Act to investigate alleged computer hackers, drug-traffickers, and child
pornographers. While we may abhor these criminals, they are not the
terrorists whom the act was meant to curtail. Is this a reasonable extension
of the limits on individual privacy contained in the act?
- Many Americans feel their privacy is besieged by unwanted solicitations—e-mail
spam, Internet pop-up ads, telemarketing calls. Are our computers and
our telephones extensions of our private space, and do we have a right
to be free of intrusions through them? Or is the answer, like the cure
for unwanted door-to-door salesmen, simply not answering?
- Are privacy infringements a classical slippery slope, where a right
once ceded is eroded? Or are there bright line differences between gratuitous
invasions of privacy and necessary sharing of information?
- The federal Do-Not-Call list has been challenged on the basis that
it exempts political and charitable organizations. Is it fair for commercial
telemarketers to be bound by the list while philanthropies and pollsters
are not?
October 23, 2003
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