The American Spectator | USA News and Politics Americans have always placed a high value on privacy, though the constitution doesn’t explicitly grant it. The 1890 landmark work entitled “The Right to Privacy” by Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren remains one of the most influential essays on American law ever written. According to Harvard Law, “in the face of modern business practices and invasive inventions, they concluded that legal remedies had to be developed to enforce definite boundaries between public and private life.” Since this work, numerous constitutional amendments and statutory laws have followed, aiming to protect individual privacy rights. Brandeis, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, went on to become a stalwart of the U.S. Supreme Court. He famously referred to privacy as the “right to be let alone.”
One alarming consequence of the COVID-19 saga seems to be the acceptance of a general erosion in privacy. That may sound odd at first, given that much of the country is living in state-imposed exile. Most are staying home, except to experience the safety that apparently only a retail grocery chain can provide. The trouble isn’t happening in our homes, though; it’s happening when we dare to leave them.
