The new Iraqi constitution, signed Monday, offers the war-torn country's citizens some of the basic rights associated with modern democracy: free and fair elections, freedom of expression, the right to peaceable assembly and fair trials.
It also offers the Iraqi people one basic right not guaranteed by the U.S. constitution: the right to privacy. "Public and private freedoms shall be protected," stipulates the document's Article 13, adding later: "Each Iraqi has the right to privacy."
Here in the United States, 2001's USA Patriot Act has eliminated such protection. Although the 1974 Privacy Act was intended to regulate the treatment of personal information by federal agencies, the Patriot Act has gutted the earlier law's protections. The 2001 law's Section 215 – the same provision that sent small-town librarians to the shredders last spring – has already given the government the right to demand records of your medical history, your travel plans and your TiVo habits.
Most recently, a Department of Homeland Security report last month found that the Transportation Security Administration "acted ... outside the spirit of the Privacy Act," but didn't actually break the law, when the agency told JetBlue in 2002 to share more than a million passenger records with a Defense Department subcontractor.
So at a time when the U.S. government seems too distracted by what couples do in the privacy of their own reception halls to be able to improve job prospects for American workers, perhaps it's time for the United States to adopt its own constitutional amendment to guarantee Americans the privacy rights being pledged to Iraqi citizens.
What would be the consequences of such constitutional protection? For one thing, it would safeguard the most intimate details of our lives – the books we read, the movies we watch, the people we love, the illnesses and physical frailties we prefer to conceal.
It would codify a fundamental American value, and throw a monkey wrench into the workings of the invasive Patriot Act, which President Bush is working to extend beyond its expiration date next year.
It would lend constitutional teeth to a woman's right to choose. And it just might keep the federal government from letting issues like same-sex marriage distract it from issues more fundamental to the structure of our society – our crumbling education system, for instance, or the steady hemorrhaging of American jobs.
Such a constitutional privacy protection is a natural fit on the Democratic side of the aisle, where it touches some of the social issues most important to the party faithful: racial profiling, disability rights, abortion. But a privacy amendment could also find support from GOP traditionalists, by presenting them with a blueprint for smaller government.
With Saddam Hussein in custody and the interim constitution in place, Iraqis have taken the first steps of what will no doubt be a challenging, often painful journey to peace and democracy. And after their more than two decades of oppression and fear, we begrudge them none of their new freedoms. But while we're exporting democracy to the Middle East, let's consider taking at least this one opportunity to lead by example, and to protect at home the privacy rights so dearly held abroad.
posted on March 15, 2004 03:00:26 AM new
Yeah right Profe.... try reading it again...
Queers thought they would sneak in under the radar during this election year... that was their agenda... however it is now the 3rd most important topic right now...
60%+ of Americans are against queers getting married and almost 50% would back an amendment, I think if more states get vigilantes like in SF, Portland and other cities that the support for a federal amendment would rise....
To propose any amendment other than the one defining marriage would be ludicris...
