the foundation of individual freedom
The Right to be Let Alone
the foundation of individual freedom
The Right to be Let Alone
Recent inventions and business methods call attention to the next step which must be taken for the protection of the person, and for securing to the individual...
the right "to be let alone"
"the right to life has come to mean the right to enjoy life,
the right to be let alone ;
the right to liberty secures the exercise of extensive civil privileges ; and the term "property" has grown to comprise every form of possession intangible, as well as tangible.
Justice Louis Brandeis
Brandeis defined protection of the private realm as the foundation of individual freedom in the modern age. Given the increasing capacity of government, the press, and other agencies and institutions to invade previously inaccessible aspects of personal activity, Brandeis and Warren argued that the law must evolve in response to technological change. Traditional prohibitions against trespass, assault, libel, and other invasive acts had afforded sufficient safeguards in previous eras, but these established principles could not, in their view, protect individuals from the "too enterprising press, the photographer, or the possessor of any other modern device for rewording or reproducing scenes or sounds." Consequently, in order to uphold the "right to one's personality" in the face of modern business practices and invasive inventions, they concluded that legal remedies had to be developed to enforce definite boundaries between public and private life.
Harvard Law Review