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LINK: PRIVACY PROTECTION

PROTECTING INFORMATION PRIVACY VIOLATES THE FIRST AMENDMENT

Fred H. Cate, Brookings Institution, 1997; PRIVACY IN THE INFORMATION AGE, EE2001 -mfp p. 55

However, the extraordinary power of this privacy protection also indicates its limits. Just as the First Amendment protects the privacy of every person to think and to express thoughts freely, it also fundamentally blocks the power of the government to restrict expression, even in order to protect the privacy of other individuals. As a result, the First Amendment-perhaps the most significant protection for privacy in the Constitutionrestrains the power of the government to control expression or to facilitate its control by private parties in an effort to protect privacy. The First Amendment is therefore of little use as a basis for protecting information privacy; on the contrary, in most cases, it stands in opposition to such protection.

THE KEY ISSUE OF PRIVACY IS THE CONTROL OF INFORMATION

Deron H. Brown, J.D. Candidate, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Spring, 2000; Thomas Jefferson Law Review, "BOOK REVIEW: PRIVACY IN THE INFORMATION AGE," EE2001-hxm lxnx

Cate sets the stage for his discussion of privacy protection in the information age by asking the fundamental question: What is privacy? As evidenced by Cate's efforts to synthesize a definition of privacy, clearly privacy is a nebulous concept. Nevertheless, he reaches a workable definition of privacy as "the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others." n10 Although this definition is somewhat broad, its fit is adequate within this context. As Cate observes, "the key elements of this definition are its focus on control of information..."