Some Thoughts on Right To Privacy

A professional contact of mine complained that her Grandmother is trying to intrude into her life, reading her private stuff, eavesdropping her phone calls, etc. This is plainly rude. Ok! The intruder is her grandmother, and she might be concerned. But she's going overboard. Her grand daughter is no longer a minor. Aside from that, her fundamental rights are violated, and this worries me.

Classical Liberalism aka Libertarianism teaches that property rights INCLUDING ownership of one's body are BASIC RIGHTS. Remove or undermine property rights, and you undermine Liberty itself. Having said that, INVADING another person's PRIVACY is one instance of trespassing or undermining or property rights. I consider PRIVACY as a derivative right of the right to one own body. By transitivity, Privacy is also a derivative of PROPERTY RIGHTS; and, therefore, it's important to respect privacy in a Liberal society.

The simple lesson I'm reminded in this report is this: It is wrong for someone even if he or she is a close relative to intrude upon someone's PRIVACY. A fortiori, it is wrong and immoral for powerful organizations, especially GOVERNMENTS, to intrude upon our privacy EVEN if such violation is claimed as an act of good will.

Posted via email from Elevic Pernis @ Posterous