Book Review: The Press and Rights to Privacy: The First Amendment Freedoms vs. Invasion of Privacy Claims, by Erin K. Coyle

Abstract

The and Rights to Privacy: The First Amendment Freedoms vs. Invasion of Privacy Claims. Erin K. Coyle. El Paso, TX: LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2012. 219 pp. $67 hbk.Between Edward Snowden's National Security Agency leaks and recent revelations that cyber hackers have stolen credit card data from possibly tens of millions of Americans, the concept of privacy has not only found its way back into the news, but is part of the national and international debate.Privacy has been part of the American legal landscape since future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and his law partner Samuel Warren wrote legal scholarship's most famous law review article in 1890, laying out much of what would become the first vestiges of privacy law.But the twenty-first-century conception of privacy is certainly different from that right to be left alone Brandeis and Warren first hatched. These legal trailblazers likely would have taken a dim view of modern tabloid and reality television and probably would have cringed at social media, online aggregators, and even computer search engines. In their view, such invasions should give rise to a private cause of action under tort law.Common law privacy law, the subject of Erin K. Coyle's book, The and Rights to Privacy: The First Amendment Freedoms vs. Invasion of Privacy Claims may be a quaint legal anachronism in the modern world. However, it is definitely worth thoroughly exploring as Coyle, an assistant professor in the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University, has done.Balancing personal privacy with the press's interest is certainly no easy task. The Supreme Court has wrestled with this less than a half-dozen times, mostly reiterating the importance of the First Amendment. Coyle notes, Press freedom and privacy both serve values considered fundamental for American democratic society. Free expres- sion and privacy rights even serve some of the same values, such as autonomy.In our modern world, it is hard to ask for privacy when you post your vacation pictures on social media, seek fame on reality television, and blog about your daily minutia. It is another thing to try to remain anonymous when nosy reporters come pok- ing around or nameless, faceless government officials screen emails and metadata and infiltrate online video game societies and have the potential to hack into just about any electronic device, computer, or system.Privacy has never been easy to define (maybe not as vexing as Justice Potter Stewart's confusion over pornography-he knows it when he sees it). Nevertheless, it is still difficult to rationalize imposing civil penalties for publishing private informa- tion about newsworthy subjects, especially when the First Amendment is infused into the discussion.Invasion of privacy basically comprises four torts-civil actions-defined differ- ently in every state: appropriation of image or likeness for commercial purposes; intru- sion; false light; and publication of private or embarrassing facts. …