Do you remember when we had personal telephone and address directories delivered to our homes? When this practice ended, the reasons given were that our privacy was being invaded and that the project became too cumbersome for the telephone companies to continue, although the foremost reason for discontinuing the books was “privacy.” Now smart phones and Google searches are ever-present, whereby we can easily obtain phone numbers, addresses and, in some cases, even photographs as well as other personal information.
When I wrote the book, Reflections: A History of River Forest, I included the River Forest phone book that had been issued in 1907. The listings stated information as to residents’ marital status, their vocations, their phone numbers and addresses. An example is Mary Hanson, widow, butter and eggs, her phone number and address. Because of privacy and other concerns that practice was discontinued approximately five years later.
Here’s some perspective from our nation’s history (excerpted from Chapter 22, “Our Right to Privacy,” from the Annenberg Classroom): “The right of privacy, as Justice Louis Brandeis once defined it, is fundamental to our understanding of freedom, but nowhere does the Constitution mention it. When Congress submitted the Bill of Rights to the people for ratification in 1789, privacy was not listed as a liberty that required protection from government.”
Yet privacy is an issue addressed in subsequent Amendments to the Constitution.
Now computers, the internet, Facebook, and you name it, offer personal information about us. Is this what we really want? Is knowing unsolicited personal information about our neighbors, employers/employees, friends, etc. necessary? Is there no value placed on privacy? I believe that privacy is an essential value that relates to many issues.
For example, I believe abortion is a privacy issue. What a women chooses for her body should be confidential. Our Supreme Court ruling and most of our states allow an individual the right to make his/her own decision. In my opinion, the life of the mother is just as important as is the life of the fetus. I believe that most people object to personal decisions being made by impersonal elected officials.
Another example has to do with what we read and, tangentially, the banning of books. Our public libraries have a vast range of books with all different types of information. I believe the reader has the right to choose what he/she wishes to read and what his/her children should learn. Again, I do not want elected officials to dictate information we have access to, based on their views of what is acceptable.
Whatever your view on confidentiality of personal information, you certainly must agree that our rights to privacy are being eroded. Perhaps it is my age, but I’m uncomfortable with the personal information that some folks have about me and my family. I certainly have nothing to hide, but I do object to this intrusion. I am truly disturbed by the rapidly growing lack of privacy in our lives.
Do you share my concern? If so, what can we do to safeguard the privacy rights we have and recapture that which we have lost?
Harriet Hausman has been a River Forest resident since 1954 and a longtime member of the ACLU. She is 98 years young.
