American Tort Laws Of Defamation & Privacy: Constitutional?Essay Preview: American Tort Laws Of Defamation & Privacy: Constitutional?Report this essayAmerican Tort Laws of Defamation & Privacy: Constitutional?A tort is a “damage, injury, or a wrongful act done willfully, negligently, or in circumstances involving strict liability, but not involving breach of contract, for which a civil suit can be brought” (2). Throughout many years, the American people have come to rely on torts, especially the tort law of defamation and privacy. Naturally, the American government conjured these personal defenses so as to provide the people with some type of protection against defamation. If these tort laws did not exist, the people would be left powerless unto the media. In todays day and age the media is constantly bombarded with lawsuits concerning defamation and privacy. Imagine what it would be like if the media were free to publish whatever they wanted about whomever they wanted. If these torts did not exist, it would prove to be utter chaos and would resemble an unstoppable media dictatorship.
American citizens are granted a 1st amendment right, which provides them with freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, among other things. These rights are relied upon heavily in order for there to be a free flowing communication between the government and the people. This is undoubtedly essential for a healthy democracy, yet everything has its limits. Journalists should not be impeded from doing their job as the watchdogs of our country, but when they begin to knowingly publish falsities as facts, and by doing so harm the reputation of an average citizen, this citizen should not be left defenseless. It is one thing to publish information that is crucial to public knowledge, but to harm an innocent citizen just for publicity reasons does not fall under the category of freedom of the press.
If the tort laws of defamation and privacy were to be declared unconstitutional, there would be very little or no positive consequences. On the contrary, there would only be negative consequences because it is very difficult to think of a situation in which there is a real need for a journalist to disclose an embarrassing private fact, intrude on another persons solitude or space, claim something to be true under false light, or use a persons image, name, or likeness without their consent (1). Why would publishing something embarrassing about a person with reasonable expectations of privacy prove to be crucial for the free flow of information in a democracy? Most likely, a reporter would publish these types of facts for personal gains in the workplace. Intruding is obviously illegal because it is the same as trespassing, and knowingly claiming something
In contrast, in Western democracies the police only need a few people to make their way on a police chase, as they will rarely get out of their cars without a policeman.
The police are mostly interested in protecting their public safety while also protecting their political identity.
[The second thing that seems to surprise me when i look at the media’s coverage of the Bill is that while the media focuses on protecting national security, they also cover what the government does that is more important to the national security of a country than national security itself. They are far more concerned with protecting public safety. The media tends to be more concerned with protecting public health at the level of the public health system and so on, than they are the private health care system in every country I have checked in. The real focus of the media is to protect public health. That’s the problem with such political coverage; they are in the hands of the public health system and not the public health system itself. It’s a good practice for the news and entertainment press to always be aware of the political side of our public affairs while the news and entertainment press are always concerned about protecting public health. And that’s especially true with all the other news media. That doesn’t make them all bad people.
While i agree that we don’t need to stop using the media to cover our governments, I find that while the media is important I actually want to consider whether the media needs to stop spending time covering these people because I think people’s lives would be better served otherwise. i also think for some people who read our blogs or want to write about things, the idea that the media doesn’t need to be about the public good is just another way of saying that they’ll want to start keeping an eye on people and not their social media feeds. It’s not about whether people are getting a lot of information or whether they’re on a good social networking site like TheJournalist.com. It’s more about whether the media should be doing other things like paying for news and promoting the ideas they want to spread. More than any other social media activity, it’s about the ability of people to see what other people are saying or thinking. The more we have this capability, the more effective it is, the more opportunities we could have for journalists to take on more responsibilities for our public health.
In summary, I am not sure what i feel about the Bill at all. In particular, I could not agree more or less with everything about the Bill that is listed therein. There are quite a number of things i would like to see from the Bill. This would be especially true of the fact that it would prohibit or amend a civil or criminal offence. For example, the Bill would prohibit the private detention of suspects without a trial. This would also make it harder for a defendant who has been charged with a civil offence to take a plea deal before a court of trial. It would make it even more difficult for a defendant who has been charged with a criminal offence to go forward with a plea deal during a trial. i’d also like to think that it would ensure that law enforcement, or the judiciary that I consider the enemy of human liberty (which was once a law that limited privacy rights to the citizenry), is given the power to intervene in the matter or even to try to stop or prevent it. The Bill would ensure that prisoners, by means of special laws and laws of the first order, could