ABSTRACT
Privacy denotes different things. More narrowly conceived, privacy may mean physical separation from others. Protecting one's reputation from defamatory comment is another dimension of privacy. Threats to privacy or autonomy are the focus of several provisions of the Constitution. By banning religious tests for public office, Article VI protects the sanctity of personal religious beliefs, and the First Amendment guards rights of individual expression, religious and otherwise. Privacy was at least a peripheral concern in several decisions by the US Supreme Court before 1965. Furthermore, by finding a protection for abortion in the Constitution, the Court nationalized the abortion debate. Questions of marriage and sexual practice, like other privacy issues, will continue to arise particularly as they intersect with religious freedom. Heightened sensitivity throughout the United States to issues of individual privacy virtually guarantees a continued involvement by judges in demarcating the dimensions of the constitutional right "to be let alone".
