There's a long litarture and philosophical debate on the whole concept of human rights. I also tend not to find those discussions particularly productive, as it's something a "get out of rational discussion free" card: a person can simply declare that some favourite property or aspect is some universally privileged right. I'm less familiar with the debate, its particulars, and various advocates than I'd like to be. Generally, though, I find the empirical arguments more persuasive.

This isn't because I don't like the specific rights conveyed. Generally, most liberal rights strike me as personally quite desirable. And preferable on a social basis.

It's the latter which I think makes a better basis for arguing for (or against) rights. There are rules of behavior, including rules reserved to individuals, which seem to make for more viable societies, cultures, and civilisations. There are also, though, overabundances of freedoms which can be counterproductive -- as Will Durant has noted, if you've got a choice between an excess of order or an excess of liberty, he'd choose order, because you still have order. (Mind, I'm not entirely convinced he's correct either.)

But generally: a right (conditional, empirically-based, predicated on an increase in overall social welfare) to privacy strikes me as something which, on balance, tends to promote rather than diminish preferred function of society as a whole. And a loss of that privacy generates highly negative consequences.

I'm les