Liberalism, Privacy, and Autonomy

The prominence the right to privacy now commands in American public law is largely attributable to the efforts of one man: Louis D. Brandeis. His role in the formulation and development of this right, and its relationship to the liberalism of the Framers and the contemporary doctrine of autonomy as expounded by Laurence Tribe are reconsidered; Brandeis's own understanding of the right to privacy is contrary to the former, and distinguishable from the: latter, a variant of the right to privacy more social than private.