krisnelson

Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis’ 1890 law review article, “The Right to Privacy,” has been deeply influential over the last 100+ years. In it, Warren and Brandeis argue for a generalized right to an “inviolate personality” in the face, especially, of growing press prying and publishing of details of people’s private life, including photographs. Given this focus on press invasions, it is unsurprising that many scholars have seen their proposed new tort as interfering with the First... Read Full Story

The modern “right to privacy” is frequently attributed to Warren and Brandeis’ groundbreaking 1890 law review essay of that same name. Its initial purpose, according to Steven Childress , was to recognize, within the traditional common law, “a civil and non-contractual right of protection against invasions of privacy.” Their stated goal was to protect a person’s “inviolate personality” ( Warren and Brandeis  195, 215) especially in the face of an increasingly invasive press whose impositions... Read Full Story

Image by takomabibelot via Flickr The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is first of ten Amendments that constitute the so-called “Bill of Rights.” It originally bound only the federal government–not state governments–but after the Civil War, it slowly began to be “incorporated” through the Fourteenth Amendment to apply to the states as well. It reads as follows: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or... Read Full Story

“Roman law” by Eugene Yurevich. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. It is a law-school maxim today that the United States is a common-law country, while most of Europe uses civil law: English-derived common law has as its most basic tenet the binding nature of judicial precedent, while Roman-derived civil law privileges statutes. But the more I investigate the history and details of each, the more clear it becomes to me that the United States, at least, owes (almost?) as much of its legal system to civil law... Read Full Story

“Roman law” by Eugene Yurevich. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. It is a law-school maxim today that the United States is a common-law country, while most of Europe uses civil law: English-derived common law has as its most basic tenet the binding nature of judicial precedent, while Roman-derived civil law privileges statutes. But the more I investigate the history and details of each, the more clear it becomes to me that the United States, at least, owes (almost?) as much of its legal system to civil law... Read Full Story

One of the defining characteristics of common law (as opposed to civil law) is the binding nature of precedent, sometimes referred to by its Latin name of stare decisis.  But before the seventeenth century, the defining characteristic of English common law was not this one, but rather that common law reflected universal and customary law, and as such the goal was for judges to utilize previous decisions as merely guides to help them get closer to the true (unwritten) laws of England, not as... Read Full Story

One of the defining characteristics of common law (as opposed to civil law) is the binding nature of precedent, sometimes referred to by its Latin name of stare decisis.  But before the seventeenth century, the defining characteristic of English common law was not this one, but rather that common law reflected universal and customary law, and as such the goal was for judges to utilize previous decisions as merely guides to help them get closer to the true (unwritten) laws of England, not as... Read Full Story

“Silos” by Sean Kelly. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. The push for “privacy” that demands an ability to allow us to restrict who sees what–enabled, for example, by new tools in Facebook and Google+–also creates and reinforces silos (filter bubbles, echo chambers) that prevent our exposure to different ideas. But  this move highlights potential conflicts between a number of rights: freedom of association and freedom of speech and the press (both from the First Amendment ) and rights to privacy (from the... Read Full Story

“Silos” by Sean Kelly. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. The push for “privacy” that demands an ability to allow us to restrict who sees what–enabled, for example, by new tools in Facebook and Google+–also creates and reinforces silos (filter bubbles, echo chambers) that prevent our exposure to different ideas. But  this move highlights potential conflicts between a number of rights: freedom of association and freedom of speech and the press (both from the First Amendment ) and rights to privacy (from the... Read Full Story

Daniel J. Solove ’s 2008 book, Understanding Privacy , attempts to characterize and understand the complex and contradictory modern views and approches to privacy. For Solove, “[p]rivacy concerns and protections do not exist for their own sake; they exist because they have been provoked by particular problems” and it “is protection from a cluster of related problems that impinge upon our activities in related ways” (76). He takes in many respects a practical approach, though he does look into... Read Full Story