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Three different congressional subcommittees are investigating various aspects of America's threatened privacy. One, headed by Senator Edward V. Long of Missouri, has energetically probed the extraordinary amount of wiretapping and bugging done by the Government's own agencies; another is headed by Senator Samuel J. Ervin Jr. of North Carolina, who is chiefly concerned with the intrusion on personal rights posed by psychological testings (sample true-false statements on a common questionnaire: "I brood a great deal. I have never indulged in any unusual sex practices.").
The third is under the chairmanship of Representative Cornelius E. Gallagher of New Jersey, who has cast a cold eye on the use of lie detectors and mail interception. One of Gallagher's chief targets is the proposal for a consolidated data center, which would computerize all the known facts concerning every U.S. citizen drawn from so cial security files, military records, census responses, school records, credit agencies, court records, tax returns, insurance forms, etc., and present them to the inquiring bureaucrat at the touch of a button. Who should be allowed to push that button is what Gallagher is worrying about. Says he: "The answer may be more important to liberty than that other big button we often worry about."
The ethical rationalizations for breaching privacy are many, and they range from the plausible to the spurious. The FBI has been known to bend wiretapping rules in the interests of fighting crime. The New England Telephone Co. recently admitted to monitoring calls "to determine the quality of customer service." Senator Thomas Dodd's aide blandly defends the lifting of his employer's documents on the grounds that he wanted to unmask wrongdoing.
There is always a conflict between the individual's claim to privacy and the community's need for information. In Britain's common law, the principle of privacy derives from the concept of private property, that "a man's house is his castle." This right was eloquently put by William Pitt: "The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail—its roof may shake—the wind may blow through it—the storms may enter—the rain may enter—but the King of England cannot enter."
The right was first extended to less solid property in 1741, when Poet Alexander Pope sued to prevent publication of certain letters of his that had fallen into a bookseller's hands, claiming that they were still his property. Pope was upheld—not on the ground of any right to privacy but rather that his property rights had been violated. Among other things, the ruling touched on the important right to refuse to communicate—or to choose with whom one will communicate.