Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!maytag!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: Privacy of personal data (was Re: Personal Privacy Violations)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Date: Sat, 12 Jan 91 18:09:34 GMT
Message-ID: <1991Jan12.180934.1314@looking.on.ca>
References: <1991Jan06.230231.21840@hoss.unl.edu> <1991Jan10.204101.29296@hoss.unl.edu> <5776@rsiatl.Dixie.Com>

If a doctor publishes your personal medical records, he has broken a
confidence.   In the case of the doctor, I think it's even a confidence that
is explicitly defined by the law or the medical association.


Folks, the right of privacy is important, but the courts have only
stated that the U.S. constitution probably *implies* a right of privacy.  On
the other hand, it quite explicitly states, in the very first line of the
bill of rights, that there is a right to freedom of the press.

How on earth can one conclude from this that privacy as a right supersedes
freedom of the press?   You might wish it did, but the document
says otherwise.

If we let privacy supersede freedom of the press too much, soon the government
will be claiming a right of privacy, I suspect.

The answer lies not in privacy but in confidentiality.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
