Our right to be left alone

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By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, Times Perspective Columnist
Published January 4, 2004

Unless you are willing to live like Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, it is nearly impossible these days to go about your business anonymously. Every time you pull out your credit card, peruse the Internet or roll through a toll booth with an E-Z pass you leave a trail that can be traced. Take money out of an ATM, buy a newspaper at a Seven-11 or walk down a certain city street and a security camera will be watching and recording. And if you want to get on an airplane, well, just don't carry anything you would be embarrassed to have dumped out on a counter.

So what does it matter if a law says police can demand identification when stopping someone during the investigation of a crime?

A case out of Nevada, asking this very question, will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court this term.

In Hiibel vs. Dist. Ct., the court will decide for the first time whether we have a right to anonymity as we go about our lives, or whether the government can demand to know who we are whenever we are out in public.

Not to overstate this, but nothing less than the very fabric of American liberty is at stake.

Here are the facts: Larry Hiibel was approached in 2000 by a deputy sheriff of Humboldt County after a bystander reported seeing a man strike a female passenger inside a parked truck. According to the deputy, Hiibel appeared intoxicated and refused to identify himself when asked. Hiibel was arrested, and after the battery charge against him was dropped, he was found guilty of delaying a public officer by refusing to cooperate and fined $250

MORE>>> http://www.stpetersburgtimes.com/2004/01/04/Columns/Our_right_to_be_left_.shtml

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1. This has been going on since WWII

Ever since the Terry vs Ohio decision by that “Liberal” Warren Court, true privacy has been under attack. The Warren Court would expand the right to privacy to the bedroom (i.e. permitting married couples to buy Contraceptives in Griswold vs Connecticut). The problem is both the Warren and Burger Courts would expand privacy everywhere EXCEPT OUT IN THE PUBLIC (where privacy is the most needed and important).

I also point out that while privacy in your home is important, no one ever really considered violating anyone’s home even prior to the privacy decisions. In the public arena, privacy is even more important AND HAS BEEN UNDER ATTACK SINCE WWII.

For Heiben vs Nevada
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=nv&vol=118NevAdvOpNo88&invol=2

Terry Vs Ohio 392 US 1 (1968):
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=392&invol=1
This is the case where Police were first given the “Right” to search someone even if the Police had no right under the fourth Amendment (i.e. NO PROBABLE CAUSE).

Griswold vs Connecticut See 381 U.S. 479 (1965)
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=381&invol=479