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Legal Steps of Action to Take If Your Privacy Has Been

Compromised by the State

All of us agree on the fact that the invasion of privacy is a serious issue, even more so if it is
done on behalf of the state itself. The right to privacy is one of the fundamental rights given to
us by the Constitution and it must be upheld. The Fourth Amendment of the United States
Constitution clearly states that “People must be protected from unreasonable searches and
seizures by the government”.

The foundation of the discourse on privacy is not older than 100 years. In fact in 1890, Harvard
Law Review published an article titled “The Right to Privacy”, whose authors were deeply
concerned with the rise of newspaper and their photography which had a tremendous potential
to expose people’s images and personal information to the public. Thereafter, the dissemination
of narratives like these led the successive US governments to come up with much needed
privacy laws. In general, when an individual’s privacy is unlawfully invaded by another party,
either the defendant will have to pay the damages or will be put behind the bars. The defendant
will subsequently need a bail bond company to get out of jail.

The moot issue, however, is how valid is the breach of privacy of citizens by government
agencies when the US law recognizes it as against Constitutional rights. It is important to

97 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – June 2017 Edition
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