A few years ago I typed up a fairly substantial document, in response to what I perceived as a lot of general ignorance concerning the origin of the “right to privacy” in the United States. Although jurisprudence is not my profession, it’s something of an interest of mine, and I tried to sum up a few of the major cases and issues involved. At the very least, my hope is that it will give the lay reader an appreciation for any upcoming Supreme Court cases, or at least allow them to hold their own in a conversation.

My original version was written in late 2002, and never read by anyone but myself. I recently updated it to cover the biggest development between then and now (Lawrence v. Texas, in 2003), and now I’m tossing it online. Please be aware: this is for basic education/entertainment only — it’s not a scholarly work and you certainly shouldn’t cite it anywhere.

It’s available as a Markdown-formatted UTF-8 text document, and minimally-formated XHTML. It’s licensed CC-BY-SA.