Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!mordor!sri-spam!nike!ucbcad!ucbvax!MC.LCS.MIT.EDU!kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu From: kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Newsgroups: mod.politics Subject: Re: Privacy Rights amendment Message-ID: <12226374068.23.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Mon, 28-Jul-86 17:58:39 EDT Article-I.D.: RED.12226374068.23.MCGREW Posted: Mon Jul 28 17:58:39 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 29-Jul-86 01:25:40 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@mc.lcs.mit.edu Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 92 Approved: poli-sci@red.rutgers.edu Return-Path: <@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 86 00:36:08 EDT From: "Keith F. Lynch" Subject: Re: Privacy Rights amendment To: Hoffman.es@XEROX.COM cc: Reges@SU-SCORE.ARPA From: Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM Enumeration of minorities is a never-ending, impossible, and unnecessary task. Instead of prohibiting discrimination of the basis of every conceivable irrelevant personal attribute, I'd like to see employers adopt a policy stating something like, "Only job-related characteristics shall be considered in hiring, firing, and promotion decisions." Do you mean that employers should voluntarily do this? Or that they should be compelled by law to do this? We need a PRIVACY RIGHTS amendment! The right to privacy which the Supreme Court has been struggling to define (and to which they've now stated an abhorrent limit) is nowhere explicit in the Constitution. Who is this amendment to protect us against? Just the government? Or other individuals and private organizations as well? If just the government, note that it will not prevent discriminatory hiring or firing. The amendments in the Bill of Rights protect individuals from the government, not from eachother. This seems to be frequently misunderstood. People speak of freedom of speech as if the first amendment prevented individuals and voluntary organizations from restricting one's freedom of speech in all circumstances. For instance as if a university is breaking the law if they forbid students from demonstrating on campus. Or even as if a radio or TV station is breaking the law if they do not provide everyone free air time to expouse their point of view. As I see it, people are free to contract together to do anything except violate other people's rights. Either party is free to attach any conditions to the contract. Each individual is also free to refuse to contract with another for any reason. This has several implications. For one thing, the equal opportunity employment laws are not fair to employers. Not only should employers not be compelled to to hire various minority groups in proportion to their representation in the population regardless of qualifications, they are not compelled to hire people they choose not to hire at all. The employer's right to choose who to hire is absolute. And what's wrong with this? It simply restores symmetry. Nobody questions the employee's absolute right to choose where to work. Can you imagine an employee being prosecuted for not applying for a job at a minority owned firm? Or for doing too little work for the wages he gets, even if the employer thinks the deal is equitable (analog of the minimum wage laws). And what if all the companies engaged in a given line of business were to simultaneously refuse to do business unless they get more profits? This would be prosecuted under the anti-trust laws, of course. What if instead of doing so, the government were to penalize any individual who does business with a company that does NOT join in the work stoppage? Sound bizarre? Well, it's the symmetrical analog of the current pro-labor union laws. I see nothing wrong with an employer refusing to hire a person because he is gay. Surely there is nothing wrong with a potential employee chosing not to work in a company because his potential boss is gay, right? The gay rights issue as I see it, is simply the right to be let alone. The sodomy laws should be overturned (though this is for states to do, not the supreme court, unless we do get a new constitutional amendment) but nobody has a right to associate with others against their will, i.e. I see nothing wrong with employers and tenants discriminating against people because they are gay or for any other reason. The issue is entirely a victimless crime issue. It has nothing to do with whether taxpayers should be compelled to pay money for AIDS research (they shouldn't) or whether anyone should be compelled to associate with gays (they shouldn't), but merely with whether consentual private sex acts should be illegal (they shouldn't). I am not clear on your proposed privacy ammendment. Are you saying it would be ok for employers to discriminate based on whether someone is gay, but not ok to ask? If so, wouldn't it be prejudicial to those who are 'out of the closet' and wish to live an open life, in favor of those choose to be secretive? Or are you saying that anything done in private would automatically become legal? I assume you exclude such things as burglary. What about private drug use? Is the idea that urine tests for drugs would be forbidden as an invasion of privacy but the drug use itself would remain illegal albeit harder to detect? This bothers me. Granted that most people like to keep sections of their life private, it doesn't seem right to me that someone who chooses not to can be prosecuted while someone who chooses to keep it all secret is safe. This is all too remeniscent of the curious notion that no crime is truly criminal, only getting caught is. ...Keith -------