Suspected criminals get privacy rights—what about the rest of us?

Less than a month after the European Union instituted rules to protect the privacy of its citizens, the United States Supreme Court took an important step to protect Americans against unwarranted government intrusion in criminal investigations. Now it is time for another branch of government—the Congress—to act to protect our privacy the rest of the time. June’s decision in Carpenter v. U.S. (16 U.S. 402) focused on the government’s access to private information. Justice Samuel Alito, in dissent, expanded the matter from privacy in criminal cases to talk about the privacy for the rest of us. “Some of the greatest threats to individual privacy,” Justice Alito warned, “may come from powerful private companies that collect and sometimes misuse vast quantities of data about the lives of ordinary Americans.”

The failure of Congress to create privacy rules doesn’t mean there are no rules—just that the rules have been created by those who profit from the sale of personal information rather than the representatives of the Americans whose privacy is being sold. The Supreme Court has stepped up to protect the privacy rights of the accused. It is time the people’s representatives step up to protect the rights of the rest of us.

[Tom Wheeler is the former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission]