The Right to Be Let Alone

“THE right to be let alone,” Justice Douglas has said in the Poliak case, “is indeed the beginning of all freedom.” If, he argued, “liberty” as used in the Fifth Amendment is to be a repository of freedom, it must include privacy as well as freedom from unlawful governmental action. This right to privacy, or the right to be let alone, can be traced back to an article by Louis D. Brandeis and Samuel D. Warren, published in 1890, that remains the classic statement on the subject. ¹