The following quotation comes from the Supreme Court ruling of 1891, of Union Pacific Railroad Company v. Botsford, of which, the opinion of the Supreme Court stated the following: “No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law.” That is to say, each one of us who lives in America, is in control of their own personhood and therefore has the right to be left alone, subject to no interference from others, unless so superseded by that which represents the clear and unquestionable authority of law.
Yet, somehow we live in a day and age, in which our right to privacy and to be left alone seems to be assailed by not only secretive and not-so-secretive governmental agencies but also by invasive private enterprise corporations, as well. Therefore, this signifies that the belief that a man’s home is their castle, or that an individual should simply be permitted to be about their business without having to justify or explain such, and to thereby not be monitored, nor to be regulated, seems to no longer be part and parcel of the American experience, whatsoever.
Indeed, those who do not seemingly have the right to their own sovereignty, are by definition, not free. While it is true that people can relinquish whatever freedoms that are theirs to other parties, this though needs to be done without coercion and voluntarily; for it is always true that our freedom to our own personhood, is our unalienable right, that should not be assailed by any other entity or governmental agency, except under the exigencies of the law, properly applied.
We live in a day and age in which the people are constantly ceding ground of that which is unalienable, through the invasive ability of high-technology monitoring to know just about everything about us, either unwittingly or wittingly. While it is bad enough, that this information is being stored and perused, it is even worse when such information is interfering with our privacy in a way and manner that we are compromised or exposed or coerced so as to be possibly placed in the unenviable position to conform with whatever governmental agencies or other enterprises desire from us or suffer the ill consequences, so of.
To be free from interference from others, and to go about our business as our personal business, without meddling from outside agencies, should be our protected right, as American citizens, and further to the point this right is unalienable, for if we do not have the right to be left alone, or to have our privacy, and to thereby own our thoughts, then we are certainly not free. This is why it is important that appropriate legislation be passed that protects the general public from governmental agencies of all sorts, as well as from private enterprise, so that in its effect, we, as a people, remain the unquestionable masters of our identity, and that all those who interfere in such or intend to interfere, are thereby held accountable, for the lasting protection of our own personhood.