“The First Amendment Is a Sweet Emotion”

February 11th, 2013

Ilya Shapiro writes at Cato@Liberty about the Steven Tyler Act, and links to my analysis and article about privacy in public. We are working on an Op-Ed on this point that we should submit in the next few days.

My favorite part of the post–which I may have had something to do with–is the lyrically inclined conclusion:

Protecting privacy in public is a laudable goal that in our constitutional jurisprudence dates back at least to the seminal article “The Right to Privacy” by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis.

Indeed, we’re all affected by the sweet emotion of seeing celebrities harassed by the paparazzi (viz., Princess Diana). The Steven Tyler Act, however, misses a very important thing – that privacy and the First Amendment can coexist.

Hawaii shouldn’t walk this way, instead promoting the right of privacy that our society should strive for while ensuring the freedom of speech. Let’s not be jaded by the costs of freedom. Anything else is just crazy.

Rock on.