Opinion ID: 1719216
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Federal Constitutional Right of Privacy

Text: The second category is the federal constitutional right of privacy from unjustified governmental intrusion. The United States Supreme Court has established a fundamental constitutional right of privacy in a number of specific circumstances. In so doing, the Supreme Court separated fourth amendment privacy interests and privacy rights arising under the first, ninth, and fourteenth amendments. Compare Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (warrant required before government could wiretap defendant's telephone booth because Fourth Amendment protects people, not places), and Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967) (principal objective of fourth amendment is protection of privacy rather than property), with Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 52 L.Ed.2d 531 (1977) (zoning ordinance which effectively prohibited woman and her grandson from inhabiting same dwelling violated fourteenth amendment due process), Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973) (fourteenth amendment right of privacy extended to pregnant woman's decision to abort), and Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965) (state law prohibiting the use of contraceptives invalidated upon finding right of privacy in the penumbra of the first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and fourteenth amendments). The United States Supreme Court, in finding that a right of privacy exists under various provisions of the United States Constitution, has, to a limited extent, addressed the right of disclosural privacy. On a case-by-case basis, the Court has balanced the personal right of privacy against the need for governmental intrusion. In applying this balancing test, it recognized a right to disclosural privacy, but found the protested governmental intrusions to be reasonable. See Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1977) (limited and controlled disclosure of former President Nixon's presidential papers and tape recordings not violative of right to privacy); Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589, 97 S.Ct. 869, 51 L.Ed.2d 64 (1977) (upheld a New York statute which compelled disclosure to government of names of persons receiving certain prescription drugs upon finding that statutory safeguards against public disclosure were sufficient to protect individual privacy interests); Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 96 S.Ct. 1155, 47 L.Ed.2d 405 (1976) (constitutional right of privacy extended only to matters of intimate or family nature and did not prohibit governmental disclosure of petitioner's arrest record). Accord, Plante v. Gonzalez, 575 F.2d 1119, 1136 (5th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1129, 99 S.Ct. 1047, 59 L.Ed.2d 90 (1979) (although public official financial privacy was matter of serious concern and deserving of strong protection, the public interests supporting public disclosure for these elected officials [were] even stronger). This Court considered the federal constitutional right of disclosural privacy in Shevin v. Byron, Harless, Schaffer, Reid & Associates, Inc., 379 So.2d 633 (Fla. 1980), when we were asked to recognize either a federal or state right of privacy prohibiting disclosure of personal information contained in applications for high-level government employment. We determined that no state right of privacy existed and that, although the United States Supreme Court had defined a federal right of privacy protecting an individual from disclosure of certain private information, the right was not violated where the information at issue was contained in an application for an executive position with a governmental agency. We concluded that the public interest in having access to the employment applications for public accountability purposes outweighed any federal constitutionally protected privacy interest that might exist. [2]