Defamation and Invasion of Privacy

Defamation and Invasion of Privacy

     Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, traducement, slander (for transitory statements), and libel (for written, broadcast, or otherwise published words)—is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government, or nation a negative image. This can be also any disparaging statement made by one person about another, which is communicated or published. It is usually a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed (the claimant).[1]

     In common law jurisdictions, slander refers to a malicious, false,[2][not specific enough to verify] and defamatory spoken statement or report, while libel refers to any other form of communication such as written words or images.[3] Most jurisdictions allow legal actions, civil and/or criminal, to deter various kinds of defamation and retaliate against groundless criticism. Related to defamation is public disclosure of private facts, which arises where one person reveals information that is not of public concern, and the release of which would offend a reasonable person. “Unlike [with] libel, truth is not a defense for invasion of privacy.”[4][not verified in body]

     False light laws are “intended primarily to protect the plaintiff‘s mental or emotional well-being.”[5] If a publication of information is false, then a tort of defamation might have occurred. If that communication is not technically false but is still misleading, then a tort of false light might have occurred.[5]

In most civil law jurisdictions, defamation is dealt with as a crime rather than a tort.[6]

     A person who harms another’s reputation may be referred to as a famacide, defamer, or slanderer. The Latin phrase famosus libellus means a libelous writing.

     In United States constitutional law the expectation of privacy is a legal test which is crucial in defining the scope of the applicability of the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is related to, but is not the same thing as a right of privacy, a much broader concept which is found in many legal systems (see privacy law).

There are two types of expectations of privacy:

•   A subjective expectation of privacy is an opinion of a person that a certain location or situation is private. These obviously vary greatly from person to person.

•   An objective, legitimate or reasonable expectation of privacy is an expectation of privacy generally recognized by society.

     Examples of places where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy are person’s residence or hotel room[1] and public places which have been specifically provided by businesses or the public sector to ensure privacy, such as public restrooms, private portions of jailhouses,[2] or a phone booth.[3][4]

     In general, one cannot have a reasonable expectation of privacy in things held out to the public. A well-known example is that there is no privacy rights in garbage left for collection in a public place.[2]. Other examples include: account records held by the bank, a person’s physical characteristics (including blood, hair, fingerprints, fingernails and the sound of your voice), what the naked eye can see below in public air space (without the use of special equipment), anything in open fields (eg. barn), odors emanating from your car or luggage and paint scrapings on the outside of your car.

     While a person may have a subjective expectation of privacy in his/her car, it is not always an objective one, unlike a person’s home.[5] 

     The privacy laws of the United States include the notion of a person’s “open fields”; that is, places where a person’s possessions do not have an objective expectation of privacy.[6

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