Opinion ID: 1235436
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Standards for Determining Invasion of Privacy Under Article I, Section 1

Text: In evaluating the NCAA's drug testing program, the trial court and the Court of Appeal assumed that private entities were subject to the same legal standards as government agencies with respect to claims of invasion of privacy. Borrowing from a few of our cases involving the conduct of government in its dealings with individual citizens, the lower courts imposed on the NCAA the burden of proving both: (1) a compelling state interest in support of drug testing; and (2) the absence of any alternative means of accomplishing that interest. (See Long Beach City Emp. v. City of Long Beach (1986) 41 Cal.3d 937, 948 [227 Cal. Rptr. 90, 719 P.2d 660]; White v. Davis, supra, 13 Cal.3d at p. 775.) Because the NCAA failed to shoulder the purported burden, it was enjoined from carrying out its drug testing program. The text of the Privacy Initiative does not define privacy. The Ballot Argument in favor includes broad references to a right to be left alone, calling it a fundamental and compelling interest, and purporting to include within its dimensions no less than our homes, our families, our thoughts, our emotions, our expressions, our personalities, our freedom of communion, and our freedom to associate with the people we choose. (Ballot Argument, supra, at p. 27.) Regrettably, such vague and all-encompassing terms afford little guidance in developing a workable legal definition of the state constitutional right to privacy. The principal focus of the Privacy Initiative is readily discernible. The Ballot Argument warns of unnecessary information gathering, use, and dissemination by public and private entities  images of government snooping, computer stored and generated dossiers and `cradle-to-grave' profiles on every American dominate the framers' appeal to the voters. (Ballot Argument, supra, at p. 26.) The evil addressed is government and business conduct in collecting and stockpiling unnecessary information ... and misusing information gathered for one purpose in order to serve other purposes or to embarrass.... ( Id. at p. 27.) The [Privacy Initiative's] primary purpose is to afford individuals some measure of protection against this most modern threat to personal privacy. ( White v. Davis, supra, 13 Cal.3d at p. 774.) Although the argument in favor does contain a cryptic reference to a compelling public need for abridgement of privacy, the reference occurs in the context of informational privacy rights against government. The argument states in part: The right of privacy is an important American heritage and essential to the fundamental rights guaranteed by the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. This right should be abridged only when there is compelling public need. Some information may remain as designated public records but only when the availability of such information is clearly in the public interest. (Ballot Argument, supra, at p. 27, italics added.) Nothing in this passage compels the conclusion that the phrase compelling public need was intended to supply a single, all-encompassing legal test for privacy rights. Even within the context of government information-gathering, the limited references in the ballot arguments to compelling necessity in the ballot arguments are not consistent. When pressed by the opponents of the Privacy Initiative, who maintained that the new right to privacy would place unwieldy burdens on government efforts to obtain information needed to police the welfare system, the framers equivocated, narrowing their description of the initiative's effect. In a rebuttal to the argument against the Privacy Initiative, Assemblyman Cory stated in part: The right to privacy will not destroy welfare nor undermine any important government program. It is limited by `compelling public necessity' and the public's need to know. [ The Privacy Initiative ] will not prevent the government from collecting any information it legitimately needs. It will only prevent misuse of this information for unauthorized purposes and preclude the collection of extraneous or frivolous information.  (Ballot Argument, supra, at p. 28, italics added.) The references to a public need to know and to information legitimately need[ed] by government serve to limit and narrow the prior reference to compelling public interest. A mere legitimate need for information may be less than overwhelming. Similarly, a type of information may not be extraneous or frivolous in pursuit of a government task, but the government's claim of entitlement may not be compelling. For example, if a perceived need merely represents greater efficiency or effectiveness in the performance of some public function, but its fulfillment is by no means indispensable to government existence or operation, it might not be regarded as compelling. And yet, as the ballot arguments reveal, the framers of the Privacy Initiative preferred, at least in responding to the arguments of their opponents, a more flexible and pragmatic approach to the privacy right than the isolated term compelling public interest appears to demand. As applied to private entities, a compelling public interest standard poses additional difficulties. Private entities pursue private ends and interests, not those of government. If every private organization had to establish a compelling public interest or compelling state interest to justify any activity that had an impact on individual privacy, it would fail to do so in most, if not all, conceivable cases. To use an example referred to in the ballot arguments, a private business extending credit or selling insurance may have a legitimate commercial need for obtaining personal information, but such a need is not thereby legally transformed into a state interest, let alone a compelling one. The Ballot Argument on the Privacy Initiative is useful in identifying the general evils that concerned its authors, but it does not provide clear or unequivocal support for a universal compelling public interest standard for privacy rights, regardless of context or circumstances. [5] Indeed, the argument offers little guidance in developing privacy standards. Rather, at bottom, it counsels careful evaluation in context of all asserted legitimate interests at stake in the resolution of privacy claims. Although confined to the single word privacy, the language of the Privacy Initiative may be more helpful in developing a suitable legal standard. The term privacy was not coined by the authors of the Privacy Initiative. At the time the Privacy Initiative was considered and adopted by the voters, a right to privacy had been recognized and defined in several distinct branches of the law. (3) When an initiative contains terms that have been judicially construed, ``the presumption is almost irresistible'' that those terms have been used ``in the precise and technical sense'' in which they have been used by the courts. ( In re Harris (1989) 49 Cal.3d 131, 136 [260 Cal. Rptr. 288, 775 P.2d 1057], quoting People v. Weidert (1985) 39 Cal.3d 836, 845-846 [218 Cal. Rptr. 57, 705 P.2d 380]; see also In re Lance W., supra, 37 Cal.3d at p. 890, fn. 11 [The adopting body is presumed to be aware of existing laws and judicial construction thereof.]; People v. Weidert, supra, 39 Cal.3d at p. 844; In re Jeanice D. (1980) 28 Cal.3d 210, 216 [168 Cal. Rptr. 455, 617 P.2d 1087] [same effect].) Therefore, in order to discern the meaning of privacy as used in the Privacy Initiative, we must examine the various legal roots of the privacy concept.