The basis of Bedoya’s argument – and that of James in Jack’d – are the anti-discrimination principles that govern modern civil rights law. Under federal and state law, powerful organizations, both public and private, are prohibited from depriving people of important opportunities because of race, age, national origin, religion, sex, or gender. their gender, disability and sexual orientation. Everyone has the right to work, go to school, get loans, use public transport, vote, and secure housing without discrimination.
Bedoya and James are right—gender, sexual and racial equality and intimate privacy is a package deal. Women, those in the LGBTQ community, whites, and people with disabilities shoulder a disproportionate share of privacy violations, leaving them vulnerable to destructive discrimination.
Following the development of modern civil rights law, the civil right to intimate privacy will counter the invasions of privacy that lead to implicit discrimination. It would limit or ban data practices that affect the opportunities of women and disadvantaged communities because they are members of protected groups. That’s the approach of the federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which prohibits companies from using genetic information in hiring decisions. GINA was inspired by the historical threat of discrimination against Blacks due to their disproportionate development of sickle cell anemia.
But a civil right to intimate privacy is not only a right against implicit discrimination but also a fundamental protected right to intimate privacy for all. As legal philosopher Robin West explains, civil rights should be understood – and protected – as “human or natural rights” that enable “our most basic human capacities”. They are the right arrive something—entitlements that allow us to “grow and integrate into society,” feel like we belong and participate as citizens. Civil rights deserve recognition and protection because they “guarantee the prerequisites for a good life”. In the United States, civil rights protections have been exercised through the interpretation of constitutional rights, the passage of state and federal laws, and the enforcement of applicable laws that underlie these rights. there.
The understanding of citizenship as human rights with fundamental rights has a rich history. In 1792, political theorists Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft argued for citizenship to public education because it facilitates human development and participation in civil society. Legal historians George Rutherglen and Edward White explored how the federal Civil Rights Act of 1866 protected common-law rights—the ability to purchase property and enter into contracts—as they were fundamental to entering into a contract. civil society, demanding protection from discrimination. Legal historian and dean of the University of Virginia Law School Risa Goluboff noted that in the 1940s, attorneys in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division focused on removing barriers to pursuit one’s chosen profession because employment is a natural and inalienable right.
The concept of citizenship as a guarantee of human rights had receded in the United States in the mid-20th century. As historian and scholar of African American Studies Carol Anderson has explained, Presidents Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt rejected it. dropped calls by civil rights activists to recognize human rights because the term was associated with communism. In turn, the NAACP abandoned calls to protect inalienable rights such as education and employment and focused instead on ensuring protections against discrimination in contexts. importance. Civil rights, as the NAACP argued in early history, both guarantee our rights to fundamental rights – including the right to intimate privacy – and resist the denial of discrimination against those rights.
Of course, not all rights imply civil rights. Many people like to buy wine on Sundays, but they won’t have the civil rights to buy it for Super Bowl parties. (Don’t get me wrong, I love whiskey, but I’d still have a full life if I could buy it just six days a week.) We love going to the park, but we wouldn’t have civil rights. entering them at night. Civil rights are rights that are considered fundamental because they allow us to thrive as individuals and active members of society.
Although the right to intimate privacy is not yet recognized as a civil right (understood as both a fundamental right and an anti-discrimination obligation), it should be. Doing so will clarify the ethical implications of intimate privacy. It will provide us with the vocabulary to understand its central role in the development of an authentic and dignified identity. It will signal that intimate privacy is a prerequisite for love, friendship, and attachment among citizens. It will convey the need for intimate privacy to the individual and community development. It will inform companies that intimate privacy deserves stronger protection than empty gestures, to individuals that a violation of intimate privacy is not a harmless farce, to The government considers data collection to erode democracy and to each of us that our intimate privacy is important.
