Should the Constitution Have a Right to Privacy? Voters in New Hampshire, the 'Live Free or Die' State, Will Decide.

Privacy concerns have prompted 10 states to add privacy protections in their constitutions. Voters in New Hampshire, the "Live Free or Die" state, could make theirs the next.

Chad Marlow, a privacy lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), has a ritual.

Each year, at the start of the New Hampshire legislative session, he reads a slew of proposed bills from longtime Republican state Rep. Neal Kurk, one of the nation's most prolific lawmakers on the issue of privacy. Marlow says reading his legislative priorities -- from regulating surveillance drones to challenging government disclosure of voter information -- is "like Christmas" for a civil libertarian like himself.

Kurk isn't seeking another term in Concord, but voters can give him a farewell gift in November. He and Marlow worked together to get a major privacy initiative onto the state's ballot.

Question 2 aims to protect Granite State residents' privacy rights in the digital age. If approved by voters, the measure would amend the state constitution to say: "An individual's right to live free from governmental intrusion in private or personal information is natural, essential and inherent."

The goal is to ensure that governments get permission before snooping through citizens’ private social media accounts, internet search histories, emails and text messages.

"Without state constitutional protections, privacy is not the Granite State’s default setting," Kurk and Marlow wrote in a recent ACLU blog post. "Rather, it needs to be repeatedly established, protected and defended by the state legislature each time a new surveillance technology or method is established, which is a common occurrence in our modern technological world."

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