What is the connection between liberty and privacy?

Question

Referring to the growing intrusion upon privacy rights

Answer 1

The Bill of Rights carries an overall implication of the right to privacy. The Bill of Rights was written in a time when most people could hardly read and lived off the land using simple tools, with full knowledge that the times would change. So when they talk about quartering troops and people's horses, we can think of those things in modern terms, look past the wording, and get to the ideas it is propounding. There is not one specific right to privacy.

One Supreme Court Justice called this body of law from within which privacy rights emanate the "penumbra" of the Bill of Rights. (actually a penumbra is a shadow made by the moon during a solar eclipse)

The Constitution isn’t some fundamentalist text sealed in the time capsule of a pastoral, semi-literate age. It’s an outline which allows for growth and change as we’ve seen in this brief essay of selected cases concerning privacy. Justice Douglas's privacy "penumbras" live in the First Amendment (“right of association”) , maybe the Second Amendment (you can have a gun inside your house as long as you aren't brandishing it in public) , Third Amendment (prohibition against compulsory “quartering of troops”), Fourth Amendment (no unwarranted or “unreasonable searches and seizures”), Fifth Amendment (no “compulsory self-incrimination” or telling on yourself to cops without a lawyer), the Ninth Amendment (which guarantees that “the enumeration of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”, meaning "just because this list doesn't have a right doesn't mean that the right doesn't exist" or " this list might be considered a starting point") and the Fourteenth Amendment (“due process of law”, meaning they can't force you to settle a dispute at the cost of your privacy just because they are in a hurry, they can't poo-poo your right to privacy and tell you to get on with it and discuss your case with your lawyer with them in the room, etc.)

Most of this stuff was written with the experience of invading/occupying British troops vivid in recent memory, and with the knowledge of the learned men who wrote it that governments are all prone to decay and corruption. They were trying to prevent abuses of power and since then we have tried to live up to the challenge they made.

It's easy to point out how we fall flat sometimes. The Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms, at a minimum having guns stored in one's home. During Hurricane Katrina, the police and military confiscated citizens guns from homes of legitimate gun owners on a wide scale, just like that. Liberals don't usually side with those who support the Second Amendment, so its easy to lose that right in a flash because nobody saw such a thing coming.

The first thing the Nazis did was to take registration lists and remove all the guns from the hands of normal citizens. I personally think we should have the right to own guns and also enjoy privacy regarding that ownership without registering/licensing them. "Big government" was never so big until it started breaking out doors down and violating core constitutional rights (not "penumbric" rights- clear, specific rights!)

Answer 2

Liberty gives you privacy.

Think about it. If you didn't have liberty (aka freedom) that means someone is watching you or telling you what to do. That means you don't have privacy.

The real key is finding that perfect balance...