Privacy is Not a Natural Right — It's an Invention

Source: Blockworks Original Title: Privacy is not a ‘natural’ right — it’s an invention Original Link: https://blockworks.co/news/privacy-right-invention “It is essential for human flourishing that we conduct substantial parts of our lives unobserved.”

— Tiffany Jenkins

The Architectural Origins of Privacy

Hallways were the first privacy technology.

In 1716, the Duchess of Marlborough questioned an architect designing Blenheim Palace about the long, narrow rooms in his plans. The architect explained these were merely “passages” between rooms.

Another contemporary builder articulated this revolutionary design’s purpose: “All the Rooms in this House are private; that is, there is a Way into each of them without passing through any other Room.”

Hallways, it turned out, created privacy.

Before hallways existed, there was no strictly separate private sphere. “The outside world could pry into anyone’s business and was expected to do so. Curiosity and nosiness were mandated.” This began to change with the Puritans, whose insistence that matters of religion and conscience were private freedoms established the first barrier the state could not cross.

The Victorian Privacy Revolution

Once established, this zone of non-interference expanded into a Victorian definition of privacy that protected bedrooms, communications, and commerce.

In 1844, this privacy zone was tested when the British government was caught opening the letters of political exile Giuseppe Mazzini. Mazzini proved the surveillance by having friends mail him grains of sand and poppy seeds. When letters arrived otherwise empty—the grains having fallen out during clumsy inspection—the breach sparked national outrage.

Thomas Carlyle called opening a man’s letters a “scoundrelism” equivalent to picking his pocket. Most tellingly, Charles Dickens novels Bleak House and Little Dorrit revolved around stolen letters threatening to expose family connections and economic dealings.

Legal Codification in America

While Victorians embraced privacy as a cultural ideal, the United States was the first to attempt writing it into law.

In 1890, Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis published The Right to Privacy—a foundational article arguing for a fundamental “right to be let alone.” Yet in researching their article, the lawyers observed a surprising gap: there is no mention of privacy in the Constitution, not even in the Amendments.

Despite the article’s influence, constitutional silence on privacy persisted for decades. In 1928, the Supreme Court upheld warrantless wiretaps in Olmstead v the United States, ruling that wiretapping did not violate the Fourth Amendment.

Justice Brandeis, writing for the four dissenters, warned prophetically: “the progress of science in furnishing the Government with means of espionage is not likely to stop with wiretapping. Ways may someday be developed by which the Government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court.”

Exactly that has happened.

The Fragile Constitutional Foundation

It was not until Griswold v Connecticut in 1965 that the Supreme Court asserted a constitutional right to privacy—using creative logic. Justice Douglas argued that the Bill of Rights’ specific guarantees have “penumbras” which, when drawn together, add up to a de facto right to privacy.

In 1967, Katz v the United States ruled that the Fourth Amendment protected not just places, but people too. The court simply required that the government obtain a warrant for eavesdropping.

But the ruling actually normalized wiretapping surveillance as a tool of law and order. Through subsequent rulings, the Supreme Court narrowed the definition of prohibited searches while broadening the scope of permissible searches and warrants. Constitutional protections for privacy were progressively undermined.

With the government granting itself expansive subpoena power, privacy is no longer a locked door at the end of a hallway—it’s merely a paperwork requirement.

Building Privacy Intentionally

It’s essential to have a private space shielded from corporate, state, and public scrutiny—a place where we can be alone. Yet history demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, “it’s neither ‘natural’ nor universal to have a private life.”

So if we want privacy in an age of surveillance and data collection, we’ll have to build it intentionally.