THE EXAMINATION OF FIVE AREAS of public policy I have under-
taken in the preceding chapters suggests that America needs a new
conception of privacy, one that reflects the current historical condi-
tions. What might such a conception look like? Before answering that
question, I quickly review the lessons of the preceding chapters and
the criteria that help determine whether there is a problem that soci-
ety needs to address, and where it is concentrated, before I turn to lay
out a conception of privacy tailored to our time, one that draws di-
rectly on the Fourth Amendment.

The headlines remind us almost daily that privacy is endangered, but
as we have seen, there are times when our commitment to privacy en-
dangers public health and public safety. In four of the five areas stud-
ied here--and in several other areas mentioned along the way--the
common good was being neglected to protect privacy. Only in one
major area of public policy--how we handle personal medical infor-

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