Uncle Sam Can Read Your Mind

I’ve been reading of several arrest in the Decatur area, of those who have been caught downloading child pornography, onto their personal computers.   I’m in no way defending those who download dirty pictures of children, however it does make one stop and realize that someone in the government, probably more than one person, at many different levels of government,  may be monitoring our every move on the Internet.   Quite simply, it raises the issue of privacy.

I always thought the Constitution guaranteed the right to privacy and I was surprised to learn that, no, it doesn’t.  It does protect us from those pesky British soldiers, who used to barge in and take over the sofa and television remote from startled families in the 1700′s.  Boy, was that was annoying!  However, in the absence of a specific right to privacy, the 9th Amendment has been used in such high profile cases where the rights to privacy were at the center of  the debate, such as in Roe vs. Wade.   The ninth amendment states:  “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” And if that doesn’t make it as clear as a bell, this should:

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals stated as follows in Gibson v. Matthews, 926 F.2d 532, 537 (6th Cir. 1991):

[T]he ninth amendment does not confer substantive rights in addition to those conferred by other portions of our governing law. The ninth amendment was added to the Bill of Rights to ensure that the maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius would not be used at a later time to deny fundamental rights merely because they were not specifically enumerated in the Constitution.  (Link)

Huh?  Okay, I was doing pretty good until I hit the words “maxim expressio unius est exclusio atlerius“.  What the heck does that mean? I’m no lawyer, nor Constitutional expert, but I think it means that just because a specific right isn’t defined somewhere in the Constitution,  it doesn’t mean that the absence of such a right makes it okay for the government, or anyone else, to deny someone else of basic human rights, and a certain level of privacy, may be one of those basic human rights. So in other words, it’s a case by case judgment, where common sense  should prevail.

So, just be aware that every Web site you visit, every picture you download, every email you send, and every search term you may Google is probably entertaining a government official somewhere, and, if you’re downloading things that are illegal, you may find yourself in hot water!

Just as long as my iPod music library is never displayed publicly, nor seen by the Decatur Police Department, I’ll be okay.  If anyone were to find out that I have purchased and downloaded music from such artists as:  Air Supply, Bread and Captain & Tennille, I’d never again be able to look another person in the eye!