The US Constitution on Privacy Rights

I. Introduction
The U.S. constitution contains no expression of valued rights in considering privacy. Therefore, the Supreme Court has adopted a rather narrow interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment specifically in regards to the term liberty, as established in the due process clause . Earlier Supreme Court decisions were not concerned with how states constituted their residents. Thus, any state, at this time, was at the liberty to deprive its residents of their first amendment, freedom of speech, religion, and press. However, this is much leniency and room for interpretation in the Due Process Clause, because it may be stretched to constitute not only at federal level but the state level. Reinterpretation under the 14th amendment bonded the first ten Bill of Rights within state governments to protect the citizens’ liberty. State governments are then prohibited from denying persons within their jurisdictions the Privileges and Immunities of a United State citizen, and guarantees that all natural born citizens have Due Process and Equal Protection of their rights, this binding, in turn, created the incorporation doctrine . Thus, the due process clause does not govern how a state sets the rules for specific disciplinary procedures. For example, in the Bill of Rights it specifies that if a citizen were accused of a crime, then that citizen would have the right to defense from a lawyer. But, suppose the state, or federal, government did not privilege that citizen to a lawyer. Then, that government would have violated this citizen the right to due process that is assured in the constitution. This thriving constitutional controversy has been in the discussions by a majority of the Supreme Court decisions. Although the United State...

... middle of paper ...

...g highlighted in this case, it is a form of “liberty,” that is emphasized, representing the holistic approach the Court took in determining the decision in Lawrence. Scholar Randy Barnett noted Justice Kennedy, “never tries to justify the sexual liberty of same-sex couples as a fundamental right. Instead, he spends his energies demonstrating the same-sex sexual freedom is a legitimate aspect of liberty, unlike, for example, actions that violate rights of others, which are not liberty but license.” Justice Kennedy’s arraignment postulated in the opinion for the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas shows groundbreaking evidence in overturning Bowers v. Hardwick. The majority opinion disregards the constitutional texts and longstanding tradition organization intended in the framework created by the founding fathers, yet it also disregards the right to privacy language.