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Privacy
Often, those who oppose stronger open records laws appeal to a national belief that is as time-honored as transparency – that which U. S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called “the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by all civilized men – the right to be let alone.”

Ironically, perhaps, Brandeis formulated his idea of a right to privacy in an 1890 Harvard Law Review article about the abuses of the press. That was the heyday of so-called “yellow journalism,” and Brandeis and co-author Samuel D. Warren recoiled from the relentless efforts of journalists to overrun the lives of private citizens in their pursuit of gossip. “Instantaneous photographs and newspaper enterprise have invaded the sacred precincts of private and domestic life,” wrote Warren and Brandeis; “and numerous mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that ‘what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from the house-tops.’” While the language may be quaint, the subject matter remains current.

Unfortunately, that argument was almost immediately turned on its head to shield government officials and others from inquiries that are essential to the ability of the press to inform the public. Warren and Brandeis were very clear that they were writing about something completely different: “The right to privacy does not prohibit any publication of a matter which is of public or general interest. . . .The general object in view is to protect the privacy of private life. . . .”

Confusion over this issue has allowed those in power to define the argument as one between government officials and reporters. And so to ask, “you elected us; who elected them?”

The dichotomy between transparency and privacy is a false one. We are not talking about paparazzi chasing after celebrities. We are not talking about photographers climbing trees to peer into bedrooms. We are not talking about invading people’s private zones. We are talking about opening the public domain to public scrutiny. It is no coincidence that one of the first things totalitarian governments do is close down the independent press and to break down the protective wall of private rights.

There are things that should not be made available to the public at large. Some, such as social security numbers and medical records, are indisputably private. Others, such as home addresses, are the subject of an important public conversation.

We want to talk about where and how to draw the line between public and private. What do you think?

But let’s be clear: The issue here is about transparency – and the opposite of transparency is not privacy.

It’s secrecy.