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Yes, it's a balance. I don't want my government hustling people into vans and disappearing, but I don't want minor indiscretions to become media-amplified scarlet letters, either.

A reasoned discussion begins with an acknowledgment that the public has a right to monitor its government, and that individuals have a right to privacy. Unfortunately, the USA PATRIOT Act substantially dimmed the sunlight on government law-enforcement activity, and the Dobbs decision severely weakened privacy as an emergent constitutional right.

Edit: As I was writing this reply, I came up with an interesting legal theory. The right to publicity is traditionally understood as a celebrity's right to control the commercialization of his or her image. Might we say that the modern attention economy has turned everyone into a potential celebrity, and thus that everyone should be allowed to control the commercial publicity of their persona? This would draw a potentially meaningful line between the public's right to know (which I expect is popular) and the media's right to commercially exploit the salacious details of an accused's crime (which is, sadly, extremely popular; otherwise, it wouldn't be as prevalent as it is today). I'm sure attorneys and legal scholars have already explored this idea.




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