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

The Right to Privacy by Robert Bork.Robert Borks The Right of Privacy examined the landmark case Griswald v.Conneticut. Borks "originalist" view entitle that Justice Douglaserroneously interpreted the right of privacy from the Constitution. Theoriginalist view is that judges must strictly adhere to the language of theConstitution, thus people do not claim a general right to privacy because it wasnever actually written into the Constitution. This view severely restrictsjudges in dealing with new issues that our forefathers could not have possiblyenvisioned. The in superpower of "originalist" to deal with modern and futureproblems displays a need for Supreme Court judges to be able to interpret rectitudesfrom the Constitution.     Without this ability it would be doubtful if peopletoday could claim a general right to privacy.The Griswald case involved a bizarre law that forbade the use of condoms in thehope that it would prevent adulterous affair s. This deduction is as absurd asbanning all sales of chocolate in order to prevent obesity.Robert Bork admitted that this law did not make sense, especially in the abilityof government officials to enforce the law. Yet, Bork disagreed with the methodused by Justice Douglas to overturn the conviction of two doctors distributing training on condoms. Bork felt that Douglass liberal use of penumbras to do a zone of privacy was an excessive use of judicial power. Bork feels ajudge must occur the Constitution and should not imply anything from thevarious ideas in the Constitution. This poses problems when trying to deal withcases that the Constitution does not specifically mention. For example, withoutthe ability to interpret some of the various amendments in the constitution itwould be virtually impossible for a judge to decide cases dealing with the on-line world. Is an on-line service provider similar to a powder store publisher(Responsible for the information that it disseminates) or like a bookstore (Thatis not specifically liable for the information that it disseminates)? Thesetypes of decisions cannot be solved with an "originalist" view, because theConstitution did not have the foresight to deal with such issues. In this samemanner Justice Douglas implements penumbras to arrive at a general right ofprivacy that is not explicitly written into the Constitution. These penumbrasare all valid within the spirit of the Constitution and does not go againstanything specifically forbidden in the document. Thus, the justification ofJustice Douglas to create a zone of privacy is legitimate and the old archaicGriswald laws is forever vanquished into the history books. Justice Douglaswrites"Various guarantees create zones of privacy.