ABSTRACT
In the legal perspective, the problem of privacy is primarily that of protecting the private sphere against intruders, whether governmental or other. Secrecy has traditionally been condemned by the more radical liberal and democratic thinkers, and publicity has been claimed to be essential to desirable public life. Immanuel Kant was inclined to make publicity the touchstone of one's acting morally; secrecy carried the implication of something questionable and presumably morally obnoxious. In psychological terms, it may be true, as Simmel has argued, that the lure of secrecy is for the possessor of a secret partly involved in the possibility of betraying it. Georg Simmel has formulated another general hypothesis concerning privacy (secrecy), relating it to the degree of civilization. The functionality of official and of private secrecy is in a delicate balance. It is difficult at the present time to assess the eventual outcome of the conflict between these two claims for secrecy.
