In response to Robert Gehrke’s complaint that the LDS Church supports legislation that would make most secret recordings illegal, (The Salt Lake Tribune, March 26) may I please remind us that the “... right of the people to be secure in their … papers and effects …” is one of the self-evident truths spoken of in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the Constitution Of The United States in its Fourth Amendment.
I’m certain Mr. Gehrke would be the first to complain were it demanded of him to reveal his secret sources of information which are crucial to his living, and who among us would allow our personal conversations to be secretly recorded by unknowns for unknown purposes? Both instances are utterly absurd to consider.
Like all freedoms, the right to privacy allows for the exercise of good and ill, but notwithstanding the occasional injury to fairness or openness, American society is far more benefited by the privilege of its privacy than not, and each of us has equal claim to the vital benefits of privacy, which necessarily includes The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Richard Ewing Davis, Stansbury Park
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