Is There a Right to Privacy?

Questions

1. What are the three categories or current legal bases of the right to privacy?
2. What are the four types of privacy torts, and what do they mean?
3. What are some criticisms of the value of privacy torts?
4. What do the privacy rights granted by the Constitution protect against?

Answers

1. (1) Privacy torts. (2) Explicit guarantees of certain aspects of privacy in the Bill of Rights. (3) Broader privacy rights implied by the Bill of Rights and further protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Private facts - public disclosure of private facts about an individual which are not in the public interest.
Intrusion tort - a highly offensive intrusion on a person's privacy or solitude; can be physical or technological.
False light torts - the publication of false and offensive representations of people
Appropriation torts - using someone's name or image without representation.
3. They are ambiguous and hard to prove in court, they may be unnecessary when they overlap with other kinds of torts, and they may violate fundamental Constitutional guarantees.
4. They protect against governmental intrusions and encroachments on privacy.