How Privacy Became a Commodity for the Rich and Powerful

The idea of privacy as a right or an intimate good is a modern conception. The ancient Greeks equated privacy with a state of deprivation; it was ascribed only to the poor who were considered too “common” to participate in public or political life. In the late 18th century, however, the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution codified the idea of a right to privacy – the notion that people should be physically free from invasive search and seizure. A century later, legal scholars began to articulate the idea of mental privacy as well: what some called the right “to be let alone” and to develop and protect one’s own personality...