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Article: Privacy
- Article from:
- West's Encyclopedia of American Law
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 The Gale Group, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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PRIVACY
In
constitutional law,
the right of people to make personal decisions regarding intimate matters; under the
common law,
the right of people to lead their lives in a manner that is reasonably secluded from public scrutiny, whether such scrutiny comes from a neighbor's prying eyes, an investigator's eavesdropping ears, or a news photographer's intrusive camera; and in statutory law, the right of people to be free from unwarranted drug testing and
electronic surveillance
.
The origins of the right to privacy can be traced to the nineteenth century. In 1890, Samuel D. Warren and louis d. brandeis published "The Right to Privacy," an influential article that postulated a general ...