The right to privacy is mentioned in several amendments in the Constitution:
“The First Amendment protects the privacy of beliefs
The Third Amendment protects the privacy of home against the use of it for housing soldiers
The Fourth Amendment protects privacy against unreasonable searches
The Fifth Amendment protects against self-incrimination, which in turn protects the privacy of personal information
The Ninth Amendment says that the “enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people.” This has been interpreted as justification for broadly reading the Bill of Rights to protect privacy in ways not specifically provided by the first eight amendments (Sharp, 2013).”
In 1965 in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court first acknowledged privacy stating that there is a “zone of privacy” when it comes to marriage and ruled against banning contraception. In 1972 in the case of Roe v. Wade, it “established the right to privacy as fundamental, and required that any government infringement of that right to be justified by a compelling state interest (Sharp, 2013).” However, it was not until later that any “right” to privacy was signed into law. The Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits unauthorized disclosure of personal information by the federal government. It also allowed people the right to view their own personal information, ask for corrections, and be informed of any disclosures. The Financial Monetization Act of 1999 requires financial institutions provide customers a policy stating what types of information is being collect about them and how it is being used. The Fair Credit Reporting Act protects personal financial information collected by reporting agencies. Also, the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) protects personal health information (Sharp, 2013). In 1986, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFFA) and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) were enacted to protect the privacy of online users. ECPA sets standards for how digital information can be accessed by the government and the CFFA makes it a federal crime to access and share protected information (Butler, 2013). The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is a bill that is currently being proposed that would address the privacy concerns when companies share personally identifiable information (PII) regarding cyberthreats to the NSA and other government agencies (Butler, 2013). The bill was introduced in 2011, passed the House of Representatives in 2013, but failed to pass by the Senate (Library of Congress, 2013). So it does not look like anyone is permitted a full “right” to privacy by law but the Constitution defines specific instances for privacy