Introduction
Celebrities as public figures publish more information than ordinary people, and at the same time, the public is eager to pry into their private life through the media, but it is easy to clash with each other. Therefore, it is worth discussing whether the law should take celebrities’ privacy as priority or the right to freedom of expression when conflicts happen. This essay illustrates the development and current status of privacy laws in US, UK and China as well as analyses the application in social media. In most of time, the right to privacy and the freedom of expression are opposite but not complementary, and the law should protect the right to freedom of speech with a legitimate expectation, but if not, the right to privacy should be more important.
1. Development of the right to privacy
The right to privacy is familiar to people in the recent one hundred years and public is increasingly interested in the right to privacy due to the progress of print media by the late 19th century (Solove et al. 2006, P9-11). The privacy law derived from the action for breach of confidence, but now the independent law of privacy is used by plenty of people to protect their private life and information (Hanna and Dodd 2012, P307).
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the right to privacy in Article 12 that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputatio” (1948) . In 1890, Samuel D. Warren and Louis Brandeis published an article named The Right to Privacy which is regarded as the first implicit declaration of an American right to privacy, and they put forward that privacy is the "right to be let alone"(1890). In ...
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One of the most sacred ideas that we hold dear is our right to privacy. It a simple correlation between being free and doing what we want, legally speaking, in our own homes and lives. Unfortunately, our lives seem to become less...
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Privacy is a complex concept with no universal definition as its meaning changes with society. Invasion of privacy occurs when there is an intrusion upon the reasonable expectation to be left alone. There has been a growing debate about the legitimacy of privacy in public
A U.S. citizen's "right to privacy" was first discussed in an 1890 Harvard Law Review article in which two Boston lawyers, Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren, defined it as "the right to be let alone." Since then, the right to privacy has provided the basis for a stream of revolutionary and controversial constitutional interpretations by courts across the United States, culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. Although decisions have come down in favor of a right to privacy, they are largely based on a broad and disputed interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. With the plethora of privacy issues that confront courts and policymakers in the current information age, the time for an amendment specifying the inalienable right to privacy is quickly approaching.
Garfinkel, Simson. "Internet Privacy Can Be Protected." Privacy. Roman Espejo. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Privacy Requires Security, Not Abstinence: Protecting an Inalienable Right in the Age of Facebook." Technology Review 112
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”(Benjamin Franklin). Privacy is considered a civil liberty issue. It reflects the American fundamental values such as civil liberties, limited government, and individualism. It covers the whole range of civil liberties spectrum and it holds every aspect of our life. It plays a major role on our daily lives and it is also a main structure in the future of democratic political system (Wemmer, 2012.) Privacy has evolved overtime, privacy can be interpreted from the First ,Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Fourteenth Amendments in the Constitution; however Americans don’t consider the importance of privacy until cases such as Griswold v. Connecticut (381 U.S. 479, 1965), Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113, 1973), Mapp v. Ohio (367 U.S. 643, 1961) are brought to the court.
have suggested that until powerful information technologies were applied to the collection and analysis of information about people, there was no general and systematic threat to privacy in public. Privacy, as such, was well-enough protected by a combination of conscious and intentional efforts (including the promulgation of law and moral norms) abetted by inefficiency. It is not surprising, therefore, that theories were not shaped in response to the issue of privacy in public; the issue did not yet exist. (17)
Constitution, the founding fathers recognized that citizens in a democracy need privacy for their ‘persons, houses, papers, and effects.’ That remains as true as ever, but our privacy laws have not kept up as technology has changed the way we hold information.”
The word “privacy” did not grow up with us throughout history, as it was already a cultural concept by our founding fathers. This term was later solidified in the nineteenth century, when the term “privacy” became a legal lexicon as Louis Brandeis (1890), former Supreme Court justice, wrote in a law review article, that, “privacy was the right to be let alone.” As previously mentioned in the introduction, the Supreme Court is the final authority on all issues between Privacy and Security. We started with the concept of our fore fathers that privacy was an agreed upon concept that became written into our legal vernacular. It is being proven that government access to individual information can intimidate the privacy that is at the very center of the association between the government and the population. The moral in...
The United States Bill of Rights guarantees its citizens the freedom of expression, but how far does that freedom extend? Does the right to express yourself include the right to observe the expressions of others? According to pro-censorship view holders, it does not. But to those who feel strongly against censorship, the freedom of information, or the “right to know,” should be an absolute right granted to the American public. Censoring material is the responsibility of the individual, not the institution itself, and certainly not the job of a separate institution. Also, the definition of what is censor-worthy is by no means clear.
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Although the right to privacy has been used to sway the outcome of many U.S court cases, including the famous Supreme Court ruling of Roe vs. Wade, there is still some debate over how the “right to privacy” should be viewed. For example both Judith Jarvis Thompson, and James Rachels agree that the right to privacy is indeed a right that is bestowed upon citizens, however their perception of how one is granted this right is quite different.
The right to privacy is our right to keep a domain around us, which includes all those things that are apart of us, such as our body, home, property, thoughts, feelings, secrets and identity. The right to privacy gives us the ability to choose which parts in this domain can be accessed by others, and to control the extent, manner and timing of the use of those parts we choose to disclose (Privacy Concerns 1). “Everyone has the right for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right…” (Privacy concerns 2). In 1998, the Human Rights Act, the act sets out the fundamental rights and freedoms that individuals have, came into force; it incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 8 which protects the right to private and family life. Was the first time there was a generalized right to privacy recognized by law in this country.
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