Model
Digital Document
Publisher
Florida Atlantic University Digital Library
Description
Privacy as a legal concept affects every single American citizen whether they
know it or not. Justice Harlan's concurrence in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347
defined an expectation of privacy as one that society must recognize as objectively
reasonable. The court has used this doctrine to establish different privacy tests for
different situations, yet has never empirically determined whether its decisions accurately
reflect society's view of what is 'reasonable.' To that end, this paper will examine the
philosophical and historical origins of the right to privacy, and well as its development by
the Supreme Court to its current status. I'll compare the Supreme Court's interpretation of
society's expectations with empirical data from psychological studies and conduct a
normative analysis to determine if the Supreme Court has accurately interpreted society's
expectations and correctly crafted the right to privacy to ideally protect the citizens and
limit state invasions of privacy.
know it or not. Justice Harlan's concurrence in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347
defined an expectation of privacy as one that society must recognize as objectively
reasonable. The court has used this doctrine to establish different privacy tests for
different situations, yet has never empirically determined whether its decisions accurately
reflect society's view of what is 'reasonable.' To that end, this paper will examine the
philosophical and historical origins of the right to privacy, and well as its development by
the Supreme Court to its current status. I'll compare the Supreme Court's interpretation of
society's expectations with empirical data from psychological studies and conduct a
normative analysis to determine if the Supreme Court has accurately interpreted society's
expectations and correctly crafted the right to privacy to ideally protect the citizens and
limit state invasions of privacy.
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