ABSTRACT

The words of Warren and Brandeis uttered over a hundred years ago remain relevant, especially following the shattering revelations about the extent of the News of the World’s phone hacking activities. Technology and greed did indeed enable the invasion of the ‘sacred precincts’ of the private lives of the family of Milly Dowler, the murdered schoolgirl whose mobile phone was hacked by employees of the newspaper while she was still missing. By deleting phone messages, the perpetrators had given false hope to the parents and police that Milly was still alive. These despicable acts not only shocked a nation, in awe at the depths at which a newspaper could sink, it also set in motion a series of events which are still unfolding as I write. The right to privacy, a right which was so distastefully trampled upon by the News of the World, is something which is said to come most sharply into conflict with the right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In addition to the rights to freedom of speech and expression, the various conventions and protocols on human rights tend, in theory at least, to give equal weight to the individual right of privacy.1 Yet of course in practice, the right to privacy for public figures and the general public has been an area of contestation for many years. As Tambini and Heyward (2002) note, the classic legal statement on privacy came from the United States but was based on common law decisions in the U.K. which prompted Warren and Brandeis to formulate their statement on the legal status of privacy. Warren and Brandeis outlined the development of the ‘right to be left alone’ (1890: 193) which has significantly contributed to the

modern liberal individualist conception of privacy and as the quote above highlights, they offer an almost prophetic warning against the erosion of privacy rights. Speaking in relation to the limits of freedom of the press Warren and Brandeis argue that:

In general, then, the matters of which the publication should be repressed may be described as those which concern the private life, habits, acts, and relations of an individual, and have no legitimate connectionwith his fitness for a public office which he seeks or for which he is suggested, or for any public or quasi public position which he seeks or for which he is suggested, and have no legitimate relation to or bearing upon any act done by him in a public or quasi public capacity.