Right to privacy

The Right to privacy comes under Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.[1]

It is often claimed, particularly by those in the eye of the media, that their right to privacy is violated when information about their private lives is reported in the press. The point of view of the press, however, is that the general public have a right to know personal information about those with celebrity status.

In the United States: The U.S. Supreme Court has found that the Constitution implicitly grants a right to privacy against governmental intrusion. This right to privacy has been the justification for decisions involving a wide range of civil liberties cases, including Pierce v. Society of Sisters, which invalidated a successful 1922 Oregon initiative requiring compulsory public education, Roe v. Wade, which struck down a Texas abortion law and thus restricted state powers to enforce laws against abortion, and Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down a Texas sodomy law and thus eliminated state powers to enforce laws against sodomy.

The article by Supreme Court Justices Warren and Brandeis entitled "The Right To Privacy" in the December 15, 1890 issue of the Harvard Law Review is often regarded as the first implicit declaration of a U.S. right to privacy. See [1]. This right is frequently debated. Strict constructivists argue that no such right exists (or at least that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to protect such a right), while some civil libertarians argue that the right invalidates many types of currently allowed civil surveilance (wiretaps, public cameras, etc.).