Opinion ID: 1202753
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Point 6. Privacy

Text: The right of the people to privacy is protected by article I, section 22 of the State Constitution. When a litigant claims that a statute infringes on his right to privacy, our first undertaking is to determine the nature of [the litigant's] right, if any, abridged by [the statute]. Ravin v. State, 537 P.2d 494, 498 (Alaska 1975). Only if the litigant's rights have been abridged do we need to resolve whether the impingement is sufficiently justified. Id. We have never yet entertained a claim that a statute theoretically impinges on some unknown person's right to privacy. [22] Thus, challenges based on privacy are unlike claims of overbreadth, where a litigant, in effect, gets a prize for bringing to judicial attention a statute's potential unconstitutional applications to third parties. L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 720 (1978). The overbreadth exception to the rule against third-party claims has rarely been extended to other types of constitutional arguments. In its brief, VECO fails to address its own right to privacy. Instead, VECO discusses the rights of two or more people who do not make contributions, and discussion groups. Worthy as those arguments may be, we decline to resolve them until requested to by one of the affected groups. We do not imply that the specific groups formed by VECO and its employees have no right to privacy. But, the contours of that right have simply not been argued. Under these circumstances, we will not speculate, without evidence, whether that right was abridged.