US Government and Constitutional Issues

The right to privacy includes the right to privacy. Citizens are protected by privacy laws from intrusion into their private life and are entitled to justice when their rights are violated and inaccurate information about them is made public. The disclosure of citizens’ personal concerns without their agreement also covers them. This privilege protects a wide range of individual rights, including the ability to use one’s name for one’s own benefit. The underlying basis of this right is the “”right to be left alone,“” which can be summed up as the right to privacy. Early years are when the formation of the right to privacy begins. It covered only the right to safety of one’s property and its privacy. In the 19th century, the focus was shifted due to the increased growth of print media. Its considerations expanded to include man’s spiritual nature, his intellect and his feelings and the right to be let alone. Privacy rights are an extrapolation of the understanding of the civil rights and allowing the civil rights an atmosphere of being exercised. Citizens, therefore, enjoy the free horizon of protection and security of all that pertains to them.

Thesis Statement

The manuscript is set to consider how federalism, civil liberty, and civil rights are related to the right to privacy. How each of these contributes positively and negatively to the privacy rights. The implications of them to privacy rights case laws where each has been brought into play.

Implications of Federalism to Privacy Rights

Federalism solves so many problems of management thus ensuring proper tracking of the right to privacy. The risks that are associated with governance by tyrannical structures are avoided. In essence, this means that service is well tracked as well as the implementation of the rights as stipulated by the law. Protection of citizens’ rights is not left aside in the benefits of the federal government system.

Federalism is a system of government where power is divided between the states government and the national government. The states exist separately where they have liberty and even free will to operate. The federal government then appears as an umbrella where responsibility is distributed and shared. Through decentralization, the tyrannical government is diffused (Hueglin & Fenna, 2015).Wings of legislation with responsibility sharing such as the congress and the Senate from all the states are involved.

Proper managements associated with federalism like faster problem solution as opposed to when the whole body is to look at every aspect of management. The states, therefore, have to work independently to solve their problems themselves. A smaller unit will always work better than a large unit. The efficiency of an extensive system is in the decentralization secret. The larger the system, the slower the growth could be if not critically considered. Biasedness associated with the solution of problems due to a large body of the national government can be tracked and reduced by the federal system. It is the states that know the inadequacy of their citizens and are thus able to work towards a proper solution of these (Robertson, 2017).

Federalism also implies exposing the citizens to jeopardy if in any case there is a political difference between the politicians of the different states. Citizens from one state are thus subjects to regulated freedoms from some highly profiled people and profiled government offices. It creates political biasedness in the long run. Federalism increases citizen participation since power is decentralized and there are therefore smaller units that are closer to the ordinary citizens. The citizens are therefore able to be part of active lawmaking and policy formulation.

Federalism plays a role in conflict management through allowing states with strong disagreements and irreconcilable difference to be separate in their regions and to create policies that would be disagreeable with those of other states. The rights to privacy of the citizens within a state can then be taken care of during policy formulation (Appleby, 2017). Federalism allows for a different set of laws to be tried by the different states to find which one is effective. The law that is effective can then be adopted by the national government. Privacy rights can be tested at various levels in different states to realize their affectivity for application in the national government. Federalism causes states to reject some policies made by the central government regardless of their consideration of the benefits those policies bring to other states. In the implementation of those policies by the national government. The states that rejected them may fail to obey them (Robertson, 2017).

Inequality between different states can be caused by federalism. Education funding, for example, may be different for different states causing the educational imbalance in the country. This can be experienced in other sectors such as health and even welfare. This causes national disparity due to priority settings of different states (Hueglin & Fenna, 2015). The law of double jeopardy prohibits the states from exercising hazardous trials and possible convictions on an individual more than once for an offense they have committed. Even with all the resources and liberties that the state has, it should not go against this because it will be subjecting the person to harassments and embarrassment. The person will live in continued expense and anxiety. Double jeopardy enhances the possibility of the accused to be found guilty even when they were innocent (Appleby, 2017).

Negative Effects of Federalism on Privacy Rights

The provision of the privacy rights are captured in the US constitution and have been subsequently carried forward in the amendments; third, fourth, fifth and also ninth amendments.These declare verily of the position of the laws as pertains the privacy of the citizens. (Mayabi, 2015). With regards to the federal system and the fact that the privacy of the citizens are to be safeguard, the national government still has through way of getting private information of the citizens. The argument still remains that the national government has granted the citizens of the respective states the freedom to make their own laws. However the national government still has to have the databases concerning the details of the citizens for security and planning purposes. The information concerning the citizens is solicited by the government through social transaction cards of the citizens. Whenever one transacts, their details are tapped. The confidence that one’s information is kept out of disclosure allows the citizens a sense of belonging. Notwithstanding, this fact still remains taken care of by the constitutions of federal governments which have laws governing privacy and civil liberties. These laws concerning privacy by the state are favored ahead of those made by the national government (Mayabi, 2015).

Arguments as to why the national government has to have the database of the citizens is to track on the issues such as insecurity. The act which is basically referred to as the patriotic act was put forward in 2001.The effects of this act was manifested from the terrorism incidence of 11th September New York attack of the same year. The act allows suspected criminals to be tracked by the federal government (Mayabi, 2015). It also has a provision which credits the federal bureau of investigation to seek accreditation from the court to do a seizure and search suspects’ properties orderly in pursuance of proper national security (Lim, 2015). The information is collected by the government during transactions such as bank transactions and even paying bills.

Positive effects of Federalism on Privacy Rights

Federalism has provided an opportunity for citizens to determine the degree of impact they require for particular laws and categorically the extent of infringement the law has on their privacy (Hail & Lange, 2010).It plays a part in ensuring that citizens of particular states are involved in law making in order to capture their views. States thus make legislation which are in accordance with its citizens’ ideas. It is the people that determine what extent of their lives privacy is made available to the national government to be used for security and even political reasons. Security issues are sort at state levels as well thus ensuring nationwide peaceful atmosphere. Political ideologies are also balanced from the states’ level and therefore a nationwide political stability. Freedom granted by the federal government to the states for enactment of privacy rights are not to be misused by the states government. The national government insists that the states’ government does not give laws that upholds the privacy rights as captured in the US constitution. The tyrannical system of what would be a vast territory to manage for the case of a whole big government is reduced through power separation (Hail & Lange, 2010).

Positive example of federalism on privacy rights

A state like California may decide for its doctors to adopt and prescribe marijuana as a medicine.

Negative example of federalism on privacy rights

A state can decide to allow alcohol taking like the “alcohol blue laws” which have no justification whatsoever.

Case Law

A state may decide within its freedom to legalize gay marriage or even adopt exemption from social security in order to execute their retirement budgets.

Implications of Civil Rights to the Right to Privacy

Civil rights are unquestionable rights enumerated in the US constitution. These are rights deserved by all people under all circumstances and apply to all regardless of race, religion, creed sexual orientation, gender, and disabilities. The fourth constitutional amendment had a provision for the right to unreasonable searches or freedom from seizures. The understanding of this right in any particular situation is up to the two political branches namely; the legislature and the executive. The accused must produce appropriate documental evidence against his or her prosecution. They must support their claims against the constitution that the policies and laws used against them are unconstitutional. Without this, the court will proceed ahead to produce an interpretation. When privacy rights are not categorically spelled, it becomes dangerous. The interpretation of the court becomes controversial and are likely to bring opposition within the political branches and the court of public opinion. The rights enumerated in the constitution with judicial decisions are far much safer (Law and Versteeg, 2012).

The 1950s and the 1960s civil rights movement’s pictures the conflict and disagreement between the practice of the state and the decisions of the court based on constitutional principles.

Texas versus Lawrence case was overturned by the court in 2003. An earlier ruling had been made for the prosecution of two gay men. The court ruled that Texas had violated the rights of those two men by enforcing a law that prohibited sodomy. ”Petitioners are entitled to respect for their life and most particularly their private lives. The state cannot cause this meaningless or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct. The privacy rights involve the individual citizens and must be exercised with the understanding of the ones the rights refer to. The civil rights gives the citizens the freedom to engage themselves in whatsoever thing without the government’s intervention“ said Justice Kennedy.

A person has the right to dictate what information is collected about them. They also have a right to determine how that information is to be used. They also have a right to review the information and protection from the disclosure of their information. The financial monetization act of the year 1999 insisted to all the financial institutions to issue all the customers with the privacy policy that explained what kind of information was collected about them and how the information was used. It also had an assurance of the protection of the customers’ information.

Privacy in the bedroom is another aspect that is controversial. It is not captured elsewhere in the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court is faced with the problem in the year 1965, suffered the deficiency of responding to the question of the strait and liberal explanation and interpretation of constitutional texts. The questions aimed at finding privacy in sex. Such questions as for where in the constitution were the liberal view to be upheld.

A case between Connecticut and Griswold challenged particularly the law of the state constitutionally because of criminalizing the distribution of contraceptives to all categories including those that were already married. The justices sweat to find the sections of the constitution where they could identify a right to privacy that concerned such issues as human reproduction and sexuality

Impacts of Civil Rights to the Right to Privacy

There is no particular document for the impacts of civil rights to the privacy rights, but this has been captured in various manuscripts separately. One such is the reports in the education sector.

The trend of the African American students who had been dropping out of school so much change and the percentages were 13 percent in 1996 from twenty percent in the year 1976.This was a result of removing racial barriers in education. The right application of the rights with human sobriety would lead to even much positive impact. Removing of barriers in education that were gender biased has led to the women participation increment in education. The outstanding experiential balance of enrolment of both gender percentage has been rising since 1972. John Roberts, a Supreme Court justice in 2007 wrought saying that preventing discrimination is starts with ending racial injustices. The people could not be handled as though they were living in ancient times before consideration of the civil rights (Daniel, 2015.

Case Law

A research company researching the amount expended due to sickness in a community in the US collected information from particular selected people based on probabilistic means. Their documentation of the use of the data did not detail all the aspects of research findings they were to get from the data and how they purposed to display their results. After their interpretation, they gazette and ranked different small dissections of locations with the amount expended due to particular sicknesses. The members of the top-ranked locations with deadly diseases moved to court to challenge that this was not constitutional and that it was against their right to privacy. The court ruled in favor of the citizens that the results were given in such small dissections that they could represent clan or family results which is disclosure of private information (Daniel, 2015).

Implications of Civil Liberties to Right to Privacy

In the year 2007, the court gave a ruling of the case between Gonzales and Carhart. The case involved a federal law of abortion barn of the 2003 act. This act had been signed to become law by George Bush during his presidency. This law banned the partial-birth abortion right and elaborated that all who would go against it would suffer prosecution and imprisonment of two years and five months. The policies set have been at the forefront in participation to counter terrorism in the United States. The civil liberty groups argued that the civil laws and policies put in place were more than enough to handle the problem of traditional war and terrorism. Civil rights policies and laws have contributed to religious freedoms for the citizens. Everybody has a right to choose which denomination they belong to and the religion they affiliate themselves without the government intervening by interference with them.

Positive Impacts of Privacy Rights on Civil Liberties

Civil rights have ensured security for citizens. The citizens have gained liberties of doing their conscious driven activities without fear of being tracked by the government. This has resulted in a sober generation that does not live in fear under particular boundaries. The sobriety of the citizens has consequentially resulted in a productive state. Generation of ideas for rapid development has been one of the contributions of the rights to privacy. Citizens are guaranteed safety of their Information in whatsoever government offices such as hospitals and even banks. They provide their details with confidence knowing that they are secure from disclosure without consent. Consequentially, research has been conducted using these information and individual identities not disclosed. A free and willing state members in participation in all the government activities and its development has also been part of the contribution resulting from civil liberties.

All the citizens regardless of race, origin have gained a right to equal treatment under the law. This has eliminated the chances of discrimination for the African American in the US.

All citizens have gained a right to vote following the civil liberties that grants this freedom.

There has also been a right to fair trial of every citizen regardless of their races.

Negative Impacts of Privacy Rights on Civil Liberty

Civil liberties have encouraged the freedoms associated with sexuality. In essence, people have engaged in prostitution regardless of decaying morality.

It has let to multi-various different views on particular issues of life such as religion, marriage, and even pregnancy. This has led to a generation that does things without boundary provided their conscious advise them to do something.

Examples of Civil Liberties

Positive Example

Los Angeles for a long time had been a home for poor and homeless people and provided security and shelter to this category which was particularly blacks. When a ”safer city initiative“ that supported new growth of the city was brought on board in the year 2006, many of these homeless people suffered harassment; they were arrested and even displaced. The America Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued the case in a court to challenge the move by the city authorities that it is against the civil liberties of the homeless people. The union argued that it is stipulated by the eighth and the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States as well as not agreeing with the California constitution. The ACLU argued that the stipulations of the article one of the Californian constitution and that of US were about civil liberties and protected individuals from harassments and any punishment due to situational dispositions like poverty. All citizens, therefore, had equal rights for protection whatsoever.

Negative Example

Abortion of innocent fetus when one willfully decided to get into unprotected sex can be viewed as an injustice and failure to consider the civil liberties of the growing fetus

Case Law

A young black African lady in Los Angeles city was subjected to torture by the city management team claiming that she was out to ruin marriages of people and that she was a foreigner in the state because of her skin color. The case was argued in court in favor of her that her torture was against the constitutional stipulations that protect all citizens against careless torture whatsoever. The court also ruled in favor of her that her civil liberties rights were infringed. The court also argued that she was racially discriminated against the constitutional interpretations (Daniel, 2015).

Conclusion

The privacy rights, the civil rights and the civil liberties are related to each other. Better implementation of civil rights has a corresponding influence on civil liberties. Privacy rights are affected positively or negatively by federalism. Nonetheless, federalism provides a better platform for consideration of private rights of the citizens.

References

Appleby, G. (2017). Justice Ginsburg, President Trump, and the need for judicial disqualification reform. Legal Ethics, 1-6.

Daniel, S. S. (2015). Washington International Law Journal.

Mayabi, C. (2015). Privacy Rights In The United States.

Hail, M., & Lange, S. (2010). Federalism and Representation in the Theory of the Founding Fathers: A Comparative Study of US and Canadian Constitutional Thought. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 40(3), 366-388.

Hueglin, T. O., & Fenna, A. (2015). Comparative federalism: A systematic inquiry. University of Toronto Press.

Law, D. S., & Versteeg, M. (2012). The declining influence of the United States Constitution.

Lim, E. T. (2015). The Federalist Provenance of the Principle of Privacy. Md. L. Rev., 75, 415.

Robertson, D. B. (2017). Federalism and the Making of America. Routledge.