The Right To Privacy - Book Review

I choose to read The Right to Privacy by Ellen Alderman & Caroline Kennedy. The first section will review and discuss the content of the book. Next, I will look at how it is relevant and connects with our course. Lastly, I will evaluate why I would recommend this book to other students.

The book reviews privacy from seven different areas, Privacy v. Law enforcement, Privacy v. Yourself, Privacy v. The Press, Privacy v. Voyeur, Privacy in the Workplace, and Privacy and Information. Each privacy section reviews a major case then cites other examples that either support or refute the main case. Each case was told from the perspective of the person whose privacy was being invaded.

Privacy v. Law enforcement
In the first section of Privacy v. Law Enforcement the authors give examples of cases dealing with searching. It begins by telling the stories of women in Chicago who were arrested for minor offenses and then harassed and violated when taken to jail. These women were forced to take off their clothes and expose themselves in horrifying ways. One woman compared what had happened to her to what she thought went on in Nazis films. The court found that the strip search was not only unconstitutional but, “violated the women’s right to equal protection under the fourth amendment.” (Alderman, Kennedy, 1995, p.16) Each of the women in the strip search cases was awarded money for damages. However, no amount of money will make up for the emotional and physical pain these women suffered.

Another major case dealing with searching was the T.L.O case, prior to this case the United States Supreme Court had not ruled whether the fourth amendment applied to school officials. Two girls were found by a teacher smoking in the bathroom. Smoking was allowed at this school but only in designated areas. The Vice Principle questioned them and the girl they called T.L.O denied smoking. The VP opened her purse and found cigarettes, marijuana papers, and a list of people who owed her money. From there it turned into a a long journey through the court system. The Supreme Court ruled the search was “in no sense unreasonable.” (Alderman, Kennedy, 1995, p.42)

Privacy v. Yourself
When it comes to ourselves and our bodies, isn’t that always private? In the cases of privacy v. yourself the authors first describe cases of abortion. They discuss the issues of a person belonging to themselves and not others or society, different abortion regulations, when life begins, and does the right to privacy include a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy? Davis v Davis was a major reviewed case in this section. A married couple tried for years to get pregnant, even if they had a positive test it ended in a tubular pregnancy. They finally heard about and tried Cryopreservation which is a process that freezes the pre-embryos. After their last failed attempt in 1989 the Davis’s filed for divorce. This is how they ended up in court; they had different plans on what to do with the pre-embryos. According to Mary Sue Davis she was entitled to the eggs because she was the mother. JR Davis, the father, wanted them to be destroyed for many reason involving bad memories of growing up with no parents. The court ruled in favor of J.R. based on a few testimonies. First, the pre-embryos are not life yet, they were not implanted in Ms. Davis, and the burdens of unwanted parenthood on J.R. would have outweighed the burden on Mary Sue of not being able to donate the pre-embryos to another couple.

The Forced Cesarean Case was a heart breaking story about a girl named Angie who was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma a rare form of cancer. She battled this disease and its affect on her body for her entire life. Angie was called a miracle after beating the disease and later started a family with her husband Rick. They conceived but when Angie was 25 weeks into pregnancy they found a large tumor on her lung and her condition was possibly harmful to the baby. Angie was incurable this time and they were both in danger either way. The doctor who had been seeing her was worried about the hospitals liability if they didn’t try to save the fetus. This is not what the family desired. If the baby survived it was a high probability it would have many health issues. While Angie was dying they held a trial and the court ruled to have the Cesarean section against the family’s wishes. The baby died two hours after the procedure and Angie the next night. In my opinion the authors in this section were trying to make the point that the hospital intruded on the family’s privacy during their daughter’s death, and the courts intruded on Angie’s right to privacy. Did the hospital and lawyers not find death as private?

Privacy v. the Press
There is a fine line between the freedom of press and our rights to privacy they often seem to conflict. People want free press, but what is too free? Where do we draw the line? The Miller v. NBC case was a major example of the infringement of the first amendment on the fourth. Dave and Brownie Miller lived in a Los Angeles apartment and had close relationships with their kids and grandkids that lived in California as well. Dave Miller collapse one night out of the blue and died. When the ambulance got their Brownie was asked to leave the room but in her state of panic didn’t notice a whole camera crew filming her husband’s death. An NBC-TV station was doing a segment on CPR and riding around with the paramedics. Brownies daughter later saw the segment on television and was shocked and in disbelief. The case was taken to court and Brownie and her daughter sued NBC for an invasion of privacy. After going through courts and appeals, the parties settled on an amount not to be revealed. The press came into their home uninvited during a critical and private time. NBC argued that they had not been asked to leave and the wife was not even aware they were there. Then it is stated that, “The right to privacy is considered a personal right. The only person who can sue for invasion of that right is the person whose privacy has actually been invaded.” (Alderman, Kennedy, 1995, p.183) In this case did NBC find it okay to invade Dave Miller’s privacy because he was dying and wouldn’t be around to sue them and win? What if Dave would have survived could he have sued NBC and won?

Privacy v. Voyeur
The section Privacy v. Voyeur, dealt with privacy issues that could occur almost anytime anywhere. The focus on this section was McCall v. The Sherwood Inn. Terry Nelson got engaged to Peter McCall in the Sherwood Inn suite on July 1, 1988. That night they made love several times. Later that night into the early morning hours they heard rustling noises and voices that they assumed were people walking to their rooms. They later found that the mirror in their room was a two way mirror and had a peep hole behind it. They confronted Ray Fowler at the front desk and took him up to show him. The newly engaged couple stayed another night in a different room but continued to worry the whole time. They ended up in court claiming invasion of privacy against the Sherwood Inn. In the Sherwood’s defense they emphasized that Peter had two siblings working at the hotel, the couple stayed another night at the hotel, never asked for a refund, and there was no actual footage of the alleged peeping. To add to Peter’s case this wasn’t the first time people had heard about the peep hole at the Sherwood, and he had told the manager who said he knew about the rumors. The Sherwood tried to claim that a former employee Dave Fitzpatrick knew of the mirror and knew Peter and had told him about it. Luckily they found this man and he testified that he had never met Peter before in his life and that the Sherwood manger had visited him early that week asking him questions and knew what he would testify so didn’t ask him to come in to court. The court ruled in favor of Peter.

Privacy in the Workplace
Shouldn’t the quality of our work determine how we succeed or fail in our jobs? Or does our sexual orientation, religious beliefs, and activities in our personal time away from our job environment effect our employers control over us? The authors demonstrate privacy in the workplace by describing the Shahar v. Bowers case. Robin Brown graduated magna cum laude from Tufts University and later went to Emory Law School on a full academic scholarship. Robin was extremely smart; she obtained a summer job for Michael Bowers, the attorney general of Georgia. She was later offered a job as a “full-time prosecutor in his office.” (Alderman, Kennedy, 1995, p.295) Around the same time as the job offer, Robin was planning her wedding to Francine Greenfield. They were having a religious ceremony performed by a rabbi, and both changing their name to Shahar. When Robin’s boss found out he sent her a letter informing her he was withdrawing the offer of employment. Robin took them the Michael Bowers to court. Robin claimed her “sexual orientation bore no relationship to the quality of her work” and what she did outside the work environment. Bowers argued “Robin’s presence in the department would undermine public confidence in the department’s ability to enforce the laws in general, because presumably she herself would be in violation of a law.”(Alderman, Kennedy, 1995, p.298) The federal district court in Atlanta ruled in favor of Bowers interest for the department outweighs Robin’s interest to her female partner. However, the Eleventh Circuit Court of appeals later reversed the decision.

There were many questions that arose from this section on Privacy in the Workplace. Does this mean an employer can fire their employee for practicing a certain religion, drinking, or weighing to much? In my opinion these are our private lifestyles and do not relate to the work place. This section describes how our jobs can be like a second home because of the amount of time spent there. Is our quality of work enough or does our employer have the right to monitor their workers themselves or just their work? The employer and employee have different arguments. With fast growing technology should the employer have the right to acquire information about their potential employees by any means? Do employees have the right to keep their personal life private from work?

Privacy and Information
The last part of the book the authors discussed how technology is allowing our personal information to be found by the click of a mouse. Computers generate information quickly and allow our information to be stored for greater periods of time unlike paper files. The final chapter looked at possible solutions to the growing problem of what information is private to individuals. Some suggestions offered to address these issues include, setting up a royalty pool where marketers wanting to inquire your information could pay for each access to this information. Another suggestion was “we own and control it,” (Alderman, Kennedy, 1995, p.329) so we should be paid for the information they wish to obtain. The final view was the most aggressive; expressing that stricter law would be the only way to help protect our information. When addressing these issues the government is handling them individually because there is no frame work or laws in place. Without an overall policy the judicial system won’t have anything to reference, like we saw throughout this book many cases set the precedent for other cases. Creating a policy to address privacy and our information is difficult because privacy means different things to different people.

Relevance to Ethics and Foundations
In my opinion The Right to Privacy is directly connected with the foundation of ethics and a many of the issues we have discussed about in our class. In my opinion most of the cases in the book involved situations where individuals ethics and morals were questioned.
It is hoped that the judges who oversee cases such as the ones described in this book, would act with integrity, moral and ethics. It is their job to be as objective as possible and make ruling that are fair. However, the judges are human beings and as such cannot help but bring some subjectivity to matters. What is right? The answer will vary depending on one’s beliefs. Some of these matters can be dealt with by looking at previous cases, while others are so new that there are no prior examples on which to base decisions. In these newer problem areas, some framework will have to be developed to handle issues that surely will continue to arise. The input of many people with varied backgrounds and lifestyles should be consulted so that the structure will be able to accommodate our diverse population. Ethics and morals are as varied as our population. This is made clear in this book by the opposing sides in each case. Most felt that they were morally correct or innocent.

The media has an obligation to report the truth but whose truth? Presenting both sides in an unbiased manner should be the objective. Again, many people with differing viewpoints should be involved when reporting about controversial topics. This would help the information being presented to the public to be as fair/ encompassing as possible. The media heavily relies on the wow factor and entertainment when reporting news. This ties directly to the book Amusing Ourselves to Death. In the case of Miller v NBC case the media could have used a dummy body to educate about CPR instead they video tapped Dave Miller because they need to show something entertaining.

Evaluation
I highly recommend The Right to Privacy, it was eye opening and left me in a state of awe and shock. I would highly recommend this book, it shows the different sides and arguments to the issue of privacy. It opened my eyes to where our privacy is being limited and invaded. Fortunately, I have not personally subjected to an invasion of privacy like the ones in these stories but I will no longer take my privacy for granted. We live in the land of freedom, well what is happening to our right to a private life? Our privacy is being taken over by the fast growing world of technology. If we are lacking privacy in these six areas the book talks about, then what is going to happen to our privacy with the rapid growth of technology?

The Right to Privacy, made me aware of the issue of privacy and how it is growing to be a major problem and will continued to be debated and questioned. When dealing with our privacy there will always be gray areas. I also recommend this book because it showed me how my values and ethics influence my beliefs on privacy. The Right to Privacy, opened me up to the importance of protecting our right to privacy, something I had taken for granted. I believe when we use the term freedom that’s what we should practice. Everyone is free to live how they choose we can’t control other people and why would we want to. “The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don’t agree with.”(Eleanor Holmes Norton, b.1937, US Congresswoman, District of Columbia) Not only to really speak but to really listen. If all people especially those in power, politicians, judges, and the government could believe and practice this. When I was reading this book I found myself in shock and having strong feeling towards certain cases and victims. Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy educated me on real cases and real people that were subjected to invasion of privacy. I was inspired by the victim’s courage in this book to come forward and tell their stories. They help the reader gain awareness to these privacy issues happening in our own country.