Privacy

Privacy is a surprisingly obscure and disputed value in contemporary society. With the tremendous advances in technology alone, calls for greater protection of privacy have increased in recent decades. Yet there is widespread confusion concerning the nature, extent, and value of privacy. Some Western countries, for example, do not acknowledge a legal right to privacy as recognized within the United States, while others, such as New Zealand and Australia, are sophisticated in their centralized and consistent approaches to personal privacy issues. Even within the United States, there is significant disagreement about privacy. The U.S. Constitution, for example, makes no mention at all of a right to privacy (though it also neglects to mention other rights, such as the right to marriage), and the major Supreme ...