The Right To Privacy By Robert Bork. :: essays research papers

The Right to Privacy by Robert Bork. Robert Bork's The Right of Privacy examined the landmark case Griswald v. Conneticut. Bork's "originalist" view proclaimed that Justice Douglas erroneously interpreted the right of privacy from the Constitution. The originalist view is that judges must strictly adhere to the language of the Constitution, thus people do not have a general right to privacy because it was never actually written into the Constitution. This view severely restricts judges in dealing with new issues that our forefathers could not have possibly envisioned. The inability of "originalist" to deal with modern and future problems displays a need for Supreme Court judges to be able to interpret laws from the Constitution. Without this ability it would be doubtful if people today could claim a general right to privacy. The Griswald case involved a bizarre law that forbade the use of condoms in the hope that it would prevent adulterous affairs. This deduction is as absurd as banning all sales of chocolate in order to prevent obesity. Robert Bork admitted that this law did not make sense, especially in the ability of government officials to enforce the law. Yet, Bork disagreed with the method used by Justice Douglas to overturn the conviction of two doctors distributing information on condoms. Bork felt that Douglas's liberal use of penumbras to create a zone of privacy was an excessive use of judicial power. Bork feels a judge must follow the Constitution and should not imply anything from the various ideas in the Constitution. This poses problems when trying to deal with cases that the Constitution does not specifically mention. For example, without the ability to interpret some of the various amendments in the constitution it would be virtually impossible for a judge to decide cases dealing with the on- line world. Is an on-line service provider similar to a magazine publisher (Responsible for the information that it disseminates) or like a bookstore (That is not specifically liable for the information that it disseminates)? These types of decisions cannot be solved with an "originalist" view, because the Constitution did not have the foresight to deal with such issues. In this same manner Justice Douglas implements penumbras to arrive at a general right of privacy that is not explicitly written into the Constitution. These penumbras are all valid within the spirit of the Constitution and does not go against anything specifically forbidden in the document. Thus, the justification of Justice Douglas to create a zone of privacy is legitimate and the old archaic Griswald laws is forever vanquished into the history books. Justice Douglas writes; "Various guarantees create zones of privacy.