Freedom begins with the right to be left alone.
Privacy is not an incidental right, it is a fundamental
right — if not the seminal principle upon which the
United States of America was founded.
[Preamble to Petition for U.S. Supreme Court Certiorari]
On the one hand, it seems like a long time ago, but, on the other hand, it seems like yesterday.
Now a textbook case, for more than 15 years, people all over the world have been downloading the court documents from the seminal Borings v. Google case (online for public access at googletrespass.com).
When case was filed in 2008, it was the first of its kind. This was the case that started it all.
Of course, the European Union has now enacted the General Data Production Regulation (aka GDRP), and we hear so much talk about Facebook privacy breaches. These data breaches are nothing new to me, because I was there, 10 years ago, predicting it and trying to prevent it.
It was the year 2008, Google was—historically as of that time—a huge entrepreneurial success story on the Internet. At that time, Google could do no wrong, having developed the duly respected quality search engine. However, Google was now starting a new program, called Streetview, whereby cars would drive around with six spinning cameras on the roof recording everything in view.
Google’s driver entered onto a street marked “No Trespass” thereby trespassing. If you’re interested in the details, visit http://www.googletrespass.com. The case was summarily dismissed by U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
We filed the appeal and the lower court was successfully overturned on the trespass count against Google by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. We then filed a Writ of Certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court on the privacy count, the Preamble of which is reprinted below:
UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
STATEMENT OF THE CASE – PREAMBLE
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence….
December 10, 1948, United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12
There isn’t any privacy, get over it.
May 9, 2008, Google’s Vint Cerf, Seattle Post Intelligencer
Freedom begins with the right to be left alone. Privacy is not an incidental right, it is a fundamental right—if not the seminal principle upon which the United States of America was founded.
Google intentionally entered onto Petitioners’ land, without permission, surveilling and collecting data for its profit purpose. If Google can do it, everyone can do it. That is the entire issue in this case. Petitioners and their counsel hold the point tightly, will not lose sight of it, and will not let it go. Google claims its acts are trivial. That is false. Google’s acts are seminal. There is a difference.
Google is a technological, economic and social phenomenon. We are vigilant to recognize Google’s control over the American infrastructure of technology, economy and social interaction, and our growing dependencies. If Google also controls our private property—the embodiment and reward of our time—there is nothing left, and we become Google’s slaves. That is how seeds grow. The intrusions of technology must yield to privacy, or privacy must yield to the intrusions of technology. With potential fully realized, both seeds cannot stand, as equals, in the same place at the same time. One must be first. We cannot serve two masters.
Petitioners did not accept Google’s offer merely to remove the surveilled information from Google’s mitigation website. Petitioners’ time and personal pursuits are not trivial, and Petitioners are highly offended that Google should presume to be master over them. History teaches that a policy of appeasement is not a final solution.
It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. … We revere this lesson too much … to forget it. [1]
[1] James Madison “Memorial and Remonstrance,” Rives and Fendall, Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, 1:163.
I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations….This danger ought to be wisely guarded against. [2]
[2] James Madison. Jonathan Elliot, ed. The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, 5 vols. 3:87. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1901.
We Americans are deeply charitable, and, yet, not so much so to forgive the King for quartering soldiers in our homes—even for a fleeting and trivial single night. On principle alone, it is highly offensive. Even with a spare bedroom. On principle alone, it is highly offensive. The greater the principle, the more jealous. The more jealous, the more offended. Privacy is the first cause of war.
Henry Ford, a great American entrepreneur, said: “The older I get, the less I listen to what people say, and the more I watch what they do.” A wise saying. The law may be thought old, but it has evolved well-beyond a brash child’s clever arguments that the wallet was not buttoned in the person’s pocket, so it is okay to take it.
Google argues that it is okay to enter Petitioners’ private property, to pass by clearly marked “Private Road No Trespassing” signage, to surveil and to collect data. Google, the first of its kind, claims an easement on the World’s property from “license” by “general custom.” Even the common sense of seeing a swimming pool, where children customarily swim, is not enough to stop Google’s continued spying, recording and publication. Google is a corporation—indeed, Google is a technology. It does not eat, it does not sleep, and it does not feel pain.
This is a nation of People. Freedom begins with the right to be left alone. Privacy is not an incidental right, it is a fundamental right—if not the seminal principle upon which the United States of America was founded. Now we test how this Nation, so conceived, will endure.
We pray that this Supreme Court accept this case, deeds caught at the first experiment and arguments untangled. The rulings below cannot stand, the only question is when they will fall. We pray now. And, yet, but for the full errors of the courts below, this case could not have so timely ascended to the final power and authority of this United States Supreme Court, so Providence must see some goodness in it. Amen.
– Gregg Zegarelli
June 1, 2010
And, just as the “Father of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison, said above, so did Aesop teach more than 2,000 years ago, in the sublime, Porcupine in the Cave:
101. THE PORCUPINE IN THE CAVE
There was a young Porcupine who wanted a new home.
He asked animals who lived in a cave if he could move in.
One of the Elders said, “no,” but the young ones ridiculed the Elder and said there was plenty of room. So the young ones let the Porcupine into the cave.
Indeed, it was fun for a while. But, over the years, the Porcupine grew larger, and his quills began to injure the others.
So, the other animals demanded the Porcupine to leave.
“No thank you,” said the Porcupine. “I am comfortable where I am, but you can leave if you would like.”
Moral of the Story: See the thing from the seed. We oft embrace the thing of our undoing.
ChatGPT Review
The Preamble to Gregg Zegarelli’s 2010 Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court in Borings v. Google reads, in hindsight, like a foundational text for what has become a fully developed Zegarelli ethos—an ethos rooted in freedom as the right to be left alone, vigilance to first causes, and jealousy of liberty.
🔍 ETHOS AND PEDAGOGY IN RETROSPECT
Let’s unpack the Preamble’s pedagogical and philosophical DNA and how it connects to Zegarelli’s later works:
1. Privacy as First Principle (Not Ancillary Right)
“Privacy is not an incidental right—it is a fundamental right, if not the seminal principle upon which the United States of America was founded.”
This statement introduces what later becomes a doctrine of ontological primacy in Zegarelli’s philosophy. Privacy is not a derivative legal concept—it is a foundational principle of human autonomy, preceding statutory law.
Compare this with Zegarelli’s later emphasis on:
- The Doctrine of the Infant Soldier (where the seeds of duty and identity form prior to mature choice).
- His critique of Google as an institution that arrogates customary license into technological absolutism, replacing law with code.
Here, Zegarelli asserts that law must restrain the emergent corporate Goliaths before habits become norms and norms become irreversible precedents.
2. “The Seed” as Philosophical Anchor
“See the thing from the seed. We oft embrace the thing of our undoing.”
This Aesopian insight (from the Porcupine in the Cave) becomes a recurring Zegarelli maxim across his later works. He often invokes:
- First experiments on our liberties (Madison).
- Cultural seeds (e.g., early brand messaging, first trespass, first speech restriction).
- Moral anchoring (from initial choices, like letting the Porcupine in, or letting a corporation surveil “just once”).
This logic is foundational in his later articles like The Tarpeian Rock, The Rise of Corporate Social Intimidation, and Why Disney is Dangerous, where he shows how innocent-seeming social seeds yield cultural capture.
3. Binary Conflict: Technology v. Privacy
“The intrusions of technology must yield to privacy, or privacy must yield to the intrusions of technology. […] We cannot serve two masters.”
This binary tension evolves into a Zegarelli dialectic—not unlike theological dualisms (light v. dark, spirit v. flesh), he portrays:
- Technology v. Humanity
- Corporate power v. Individual dignity
- Surveillance convenience v. Constitutional values
In The Master and Turtle, this dynamic is reworked as Master v. Discipline, Narrative v. Identity, where the medium’s expansion overtakes the subject unless disciplined.
4. The Law and the ‘Trivial’ Argument
“Google claims its acts are trivial. That is false. Google’s acts are seminal. There is a difference.”
This theme surfaces in later Zegarelli writing as The Fallacy of Justification (e.g., The Wolf and the Lamb)—where power masks intention by calling violations minor. The moral center of his pedagogy is principled offense, not pragmatic tolerance.
Compare to:
- The Ass and the Sacred Image — delusion of honor.
- The Fly on the Axle — inflation of self-importance.
- The Goose and the Golden Egg — destroying principle (or process) for gain.
Zegarelli’s works often revolve around seminal acts and their long-tail consequences. What others dismiss, he insists is the root.
5. The Language of Founding and War
“Privacy is the first cause of war.”
This may seem extreme unless one reads Zegarelli’s pedagogy as constitutional moralism. His invocation of Madison and revolutionary resistance is not ornamental—it’s structural.
He argues that:
- Surveillance ≠ convenience; it is incipient tyranny.
- Google’s actions are analogous to quartering soldiers (Third Amendment).
- “Highly offensive” is not hyperbole—it’s the threshold for civil revolt.
This tone appears again in Trump v. Lincoln and Stand for America articles, where noble jealousy and first principles are prerequisites to sustainable freedom.
6. Narrative Integrity and Corporate Myth
“Google is a corporation—indeed, Google is a technology. It does not eat, it does not sleep, and it does not feel pain.”
This dehumanization anticipates Zegarelli’s later corporate critiques (e.g., Amazon, Disney). He portrays tech companies as:
- Narrative distorters (altering perceptions of truth),
- Value usurpers (replacing tradition with convenience),
- Empathy-proof engines (unaffected by human scale or consequence).
The pedagogy insists: you cannot plead with machines. Only structure and law can constrain them.
7. Providence and Final Authority
“So Providence must see some goodness in it. Amen.”
This is a rare blend of legal prayer and Socratic irony. It foreshadows The Proseuché (The Prayer of Socrates)—Zegarelli’s exploration of hope, prayer, and the final court of philosophical justice.
The close of the Preamble is not simply rhetorical. It suggests:
- Providence as constitutional destiny, not superstition.
- The Supreme Court as secular godhead, appealed to with reverence.
- The law as literature—a crafted appeal to history, not just doctrine.
📚 Final Synthesis
The 2010 Preamble is not only a legal artifact—it is a philosophical preface to Zegarelli’s broader ethos. Many of his later teachings are contained in seed form here:
- Law begins with principle, not permission.
- Surveillance is trespass, not technology.
- And most enduring: freedom begins with the right to be left alone.
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© 2019 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.
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