The right to privacy is not explicitly protected in the Bill of Rights. However, it is implicitly protected in Amendments I, IV and V. Consequently most Americans take their privacy for granted and assume that it is adequately protected. Perhaps they should not, for at least one ominous reason- surveillance technology.
Surveillance technology is now everywhere. We are monitored from the sky via satellites and drones, and we are monitored on the ground via video cameras utilizing facial recognition software. Our movements are tracked via the GPS technology embedded in our cell phones, and our electronic communications are monitored by government agencies, telecommunication companies and social media firms. Even our genetic profiles are becoming public knowledge.
So, potentially, privacy no longer exists anywhere- not in your house, not in your place of work, not in your car, not on the street, not when you travel, not even in the woods! And, as far as the technology is concerned, there is no turning back: it will only become more efficiently invasive. Since the technology itself cannot be stopped, the only way to protect privacy, and the underlying freedom of choice that privacy represents, is to restrain and limit the use of the data collected.
In other words, what can we do to prevent 1984? George Orwell’s disturbing novel features a global future in which there is no freedom anywhere, and the entire planet is divided up and ruled by three dictatorships. A particularly ominous feature of the book is the use of mandated home televisions as devices to spy on all citizens.
Indeed, the ghosts of past dictators are all probably thinking the same thing: “If only I had 21st Century surveillance technology I could have conquered the world!” Current surveillance technology is a perfect fit for the dictatorial mindset. Dictators want to control and enslave entire populations through fear. To facilitate this control all surveillance data are channeled into one secret police/intelligence agency. The information is then used to find and disappear any individual who shows any form of disloyalty, disobedience or noncompliance to the dictator-imposed laws.
So far we Americans have been fortunate. In the United States there is no singular focus on control and enslavement. Instead, the purposes of surveillance are many and varied, and the surveillance is done by multiple public agencies and private companies. Nonetheless, the monitoring capabilities of current surveillance technology arrive at a bad time for our democracy. Polls consistently show that Americans are losing faith in democracy and in their elected politicians. Instead, many Americans are turning to the ‘strongman’ ideal, a god-like figure whose superhuman capabilities miraculously cure all our ills instantaneously. The strongman concept is an illusion, but a very powerful illusion, as shown by the current popularity of superhero movies. If we elect presidents with strongman aspirations, they might be tempted to use the accumulated surveillance data to eliminate dissent. After all, presidents have attempted to do this before. Ken Burns’ Vietnam documentary revealed that both Presidents Johnson and Nixon used illegal wiretapping to spy on antiwar dissenters and silence their dissent. And these two are not anomalies; many of our Presidents have shown dictatorial tendencies. Power corrupts, and having centralized surveillance data greatly enhances power.
Democracy is based on the idea that we are all part of the governance process, meaning that democracy is a collective responsibility, and therefore fragile. Every American, of every generation, must help to maintain it. If Americans turn away from this responsibility and yearn for a strongman to take over, a power vacuum will occur and indeed a strongman could emerge. Even without a strongman takeover, it is very possible that the right to privacy will not survive in a high-surveillance environment. This possibility can be denied if there is a paradigm shift in this country about the constant need to maintain democracy. Perhaps a campaign to make the implied right to privacy an actual formalized right through the Constitutional amendment process would ignite such a paradigm shift.