Privacy Is Fundamental, Right?
Over one hundred years ago, Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis recognized that individual rights were fundamental and “as old as the common law.” Samuel D. Warren & Louis D. Brandeis, The Right to Privacy, 4 Harv. L. rev. 193, 193 (1890), available at http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/privacy/Privacy_brand_warr2.html. “Political, social, and economic changes entail the recognition of new rights, and the common law, in its eternal youth, grows to meet the new demands of society.” Id. As social norms change and as technologies develop, so then do our fundamental rights. Today we are faced with protecting one of those rights not contemplated over 100 years ago but so sacred to us: our online privacy. Our online privacy and our online presence are so fundamental, and yet we continue to allow ourselves to remain, in many ways, exposed and unprotected.
Originally published in Human Rights Magazine, Volume 41, Number 3, 2016.
Please see full publication below for more information.
