 Like the right to freedom of speech, the liberal commitment to privacy is not absolute. It can be overridden if the private activities of individuals are such as to cause significant harm to others. Thus, if there is reliable evidence to suggest that the voluntary private consumption of pornography causes sufficiently great harm to others then – provided that this harm is sufficiently great and that state prohibitions are the only effective way of preventing it – the state would have a legitimate interest in prohibiting it.