LD Nov/Dec 2018 - Public Right to Know vs Candidate Privacy - Introduction

Resolved: In a democracy, the public’s right to know ought to be valued above the right to privacy of candidates for public office.

For Aff and Neg and other LD topics, click here.

Introduction

Skimming Muddy Waters

For some reason, still not clear to me, when asked their first impressions of this resolution, several of the Lincoln Douglas debaters on my team remarked the topic seemed to be very narrow. I'm not exactly sure why they believed that and why a narrow topic is necessarily a bad thing. In my opinion, a narrow topic invites a very focused research burden for both sides and is more likely to ensure the kind of clash judges love to observe and evaluate. From my point of view, this topic is anything but narrow and I think that becomes, uhm, - clear - when one tries to understand the framers intent and the definition of the key phrases, "right to know" and "right to privacy". I say it becomes "clear" with trepidation because this resolution is not so clear. The deeper one goes, the murkier the waters become as one tries to fathom the limits of what may be defined as the public's legitimate right to know and a political candidate's right to privacy. In our discussion, the students very quickly got entangled in the "weeds" trying to constrain the boundaries between the 'right to know' and the 'right to privacy'. Moreover, many of my students did not know the existing law, nor what information is already 'public' in the context of a political campaign.

Perhaps the current events in the world of U.S. politics provides a degree of clarity on the resolution framer's intent. For example, against the backdrop of a U.S. president who has refused to make his tax returns public, does the public have a right to access those documents and if so, why? In the context of a Supreme Court appointee accused of unscrupulous and allegedly illegal behavior, is his conduct as a minor, subject to public disclosure for the purposes of deciding his fitness to sit on the bench? Where is the bright-line for privacy for any local politician seeking to serve the interests of the public? Does the public have the right to examine, the candidate's life as a minor, medical records, family history, school records, etc? Perhaps the bright-line is fuzzy because the limits of a politicians right to privacy is conditional upon some case-by-case assessment of what kinds of information may be relevant in determining the candidates fitness to serve the interests of the individuals represented and certainly, what is relevant is very much dependent upon who is making the inquiry. Religious people or non-religious, liberal or conservative, naturalized citizens or native born, rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy, youth or senior citizen, all have unique perspectives on what kind of potentially private information may be relevant to decide whether a particular candidate will protect public interests.

What is Democracy?

The resolution specifies a qualifier, "in a democracy" which may serve to provide some useful context. I believe most of my debaters had a functional knowledge of what is a democracy, and some understood, the U.S. is a somewhat particular form of representative democracy. Core to the ideology of democratic governance is the concept of accountability, as seen in the following source. 

Schmitter & Karl:

Modern political democracy is a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives.[4]

Given this broad swipe at definition of democracy, the source further refines the context by providing a minimal set of conditions required to support and sustain a democracy.

Schmitter & Karl:

Robert Dahl has offered the most generally accepted listing of what he terms the “procedural minimal” conditions that must be present for modern political democracy (or as he puts it, “polyarchy”) to exist:

1) Control over government decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in elected officials.

2) Elected officials are chosen in frequent and fairly conducted elections in which coercion is comparatively uncommon.

3) Practically all adults have the right to vote in the election of officials.

4) Practically all adults have the right to run for elective offices in the government. . . .

5) Citizens have a right to express themselves without the danger of severe punishment on political matters broadly defined. . . .

6) Citizens have a right to seek out alternative sources of information. Moreover, alternative sources of information exist and are protected by law.

7) . . . . Citizens also have the right to form relatively independent associations or organizations, including independent political parties and interest groups.[9]

As previously stated, accountability is a core concept and is reflected in the conditions which support democratic governance and much of the public oversight in the U.S. has been supported by laws such as the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) at the federal level and various "sunshine" provisions and laws at the local level, which provide a good degree of visibility into the machinations of the functioning governments.

The Veil of Privacy

It is important to note, this resolution is not U.S. specific. There are democracies all around the world and while many face the same requirement for accountability, the lines they draw between public and private life of individuals may vary greatly. During the 2014/15 season, Lincoln Douglas debaters dealt with the topic, Resolved: The "right to be forgotten" from Internet searches ought to be a civil right. It was interesting in that it looked at the right of privacy in the age of the Internet in which information can circulate around the world in a matter of seconds and potentially private and disparaging information may be very difficult to expunge.

I think one of the most enlightening and important perspectives exposed by that resolution was the Europeans Union's (EU) commitment to personal privacy based upon the guidance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 12, which states:

UDHR:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

I can clearly recall debates on the topic citing examples of a politician in Europe, seeking to expunge past criminal records in compliance with his rights under EU laws and UDHR. Interestingly, this debate foreshadowed the current resolution which perhaps suggests after four years the topic still remains open for debate.

Stay Out of the Weeds

In my opinion, this topic may turn out to be quite challenging for novice debaters. I say this, because in my experience it is common to watch novice debaters run off the rails and bog down in the weeds and this topic is the kind of resolution in which it would be easy to lose track of the larger issues.

At its core, this debate is intended to focus on the conflict or balance of two perceived rights which can just as easily be defined as core human values consistent with the framework of Lincoln Douglas Debate. It is an attempt to define the stasis between the value of knowledge (the public's right to know) and the value of privacy (a right of property). In the context of this resolution, the Affirmative may focus on the importance of knowledge, or openness as foundational to the proper maintenance of democratic governance and thus legitimacy. The negative may argue the invasion of privacy is an affront on Lockean principles of the right to property and how such violations of natural rights may chill the desire for public service and perhaps undermine governmental legitimacy. It may be possible to run this debate without ever talking about specifics such as tax returns, past allegations, medical records, or Internet profiles. I look forward to seeing out this one unfolds.