Sunday, July 17, 2011

Can someone further explain article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

It says "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home, or correspondence,[.......]Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference." I'm just wondering how specific it is-- does this privacy protection apply to big things like your bank teller not sharing your social security # for example, or your human resources rep not sharing how much you make at your job, things like that? I guess my question is does it also apply to personal expression like journals/diaries or whatever? Does this article protect you (as much as these articles can actually "protect" since they're not backed by the law) when you're 15 and keep a diary of the boys you have crushes on? Or does this article protect adults who keep journals as an outlet for facing the complicated matters of todays world in life/careers/love&relationships,etc? I keep a journal of STUFF, I guess... quotes I like, random thoughts, dreams, full journal entries, whatever... I don't go out of my way to hide it since there's nothing incriminating in there, just MY stuff. My boyfriend thinks he's totally entitled to read it and that there's no such thing as privacy in a relationship when 2 ppl are together. So, that means my cell is periodically looked at to see my texts/calls, JUST to see whats going on; my facebook page is up for grabs if I accidentally leave me signed in (which I have a cpl times-- my bad but it doesn't give him permission to peruse, right?), my email the same if I leave it up... He feels he's entitled to all this "checking" or whatever, that if we're together I shouldnt have anything he cant see or be doing anything he can't know about. I'M NOT, and we;ve gotten into fights about this before, til lately I've just been too annoyed to even defend myself. I won't fight about it anymore, I'm just not forthcoming. If he asks "who's ____?", a new entry in my cell phone, I don't offer the answer anymore like I wouldve in the past. I don't tell him its a social worker colleague I finally put in my phone, I just let him go crazy in his mind because I feel like his behavior doesn't deserve the calmness that the truth would bring about for him. He feels he's totally entitled to reading whatever, trying to find out whatever, and questioning me about whatever! So my question is, is this "violating" article 12 of the Universal Dec of Human Rights? I just feel like when Eleanor Roosevelt was collaborating with the United Nations in 1945 she wasn't thinking about petty little crap like this-- obviously probably more along the lines of 'the mailman can't hold your letter up to the light'. Does this count?

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