Privacy Isn't Dead
The Atlantic|May 2022
But who gets to keep a secret in hyperconnected world!
Sarah E. Igo
Privacy Isn't Dead

America's first newspaper, Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, was also one of its shortest-lived. Motivated by the creed “That Memorable Occurrents of Divine Providence may not be neglected or forgotten,” the inaugural issue, published in 1690, aired rumors of an affair between the French king and his daughter-in-law, along with other scandalous reports—and was promptly censored and confiscated by British authorities in Boston. But the American appetite for such salacious fare was irrepressible. By the time of the Civil War, journals such as The Illustrated Police News were devoted to graphic depictions of real-life criminal cases: Readers were served up vivid woodcuts of brothel raids, hangings, suicides, and child deaths—the more violent and gruesome, the better.

The invasiveness of contemporary gossip sites, social media, and search engines, it turns out, has a long pedigree. Although the technologies of dissemination have changed, the impulse to portray—and profit from intimate material has thrived for centuries.

The lineage of the counter-impulse—legal efforts to restrain intrusions into Americans' private lives and affairs—is shorter and its legacy more elusive. Public calls for a right to privacy emerged only at the turn of the 20th century, triggered by a more aggressive press as well as technical innovations like instantaneous photography, new communication platforms like the telegraph and the telephone, and, later, novel uses of personal information by private companies and government agencies. In response, state legislatures, the Supreme Court, and eventually Congress stepped in to patrol the boundary between the properly public and the deservedly private.

This story is from the May 2022 edition of The Atlantic.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.

This story is from the May 2022 edition of The Atlantic.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.

MORE STORIES FROM THE ATLANTICView All
After the Miracle
The Atlantic

After the Miracle

Cystic fibrosis once guaranteed an early deathbut a medical breakthrough has given many patients a chance to live decades longer than expected. What do they do now?

time-read
10+ mins  |
April 2024
WILLIAM WHITWORTH 1937-2024
The Atlantic

WILLIAM WHITWORTH 1937-2024

WILLIAM WHITWORTH, the editor of The Atlantic from 1980 to 1999, had a soft voice and an Arkansas accent that decades of living in New York and New England never much eroded.

time-read
6 mins  |
May 2024
Christine Blasey Ford Testifies Again
The Atlantic

Christine Blasey Ford Testifies Again

Her new memoir doubles as a modern-day horror story.

time-read
9 mins  |
May 2024
Is Theo Von the Next Joe Rogan?
The Atlantic

Is Theo Von the Next Joe Rogan?

Or is he something else entirely?

time-read
5 mins  |
May 2024
Orwell's Escape
The Atlantic

Orwell's Escape

Why the author repaired to the remote Isle of Jura to write his masterpiece, 1984

time-read
10+ mins  |
May 2024
What's So Bad About Asking Where Humans Came From?
The Atlantic

What's So Bad About Asking Where Humans Came From?

Human origin stories have often been used for nefarious purposes. That doesn't mean they are worthless.

time-read
10 mins  |
May 2024
Miranda's Last Gift
The Atlantic

Miranda's Last Gift

When our daughter died suddenly, she left us with grief, memories and Ringo.

time-read
10+ mins  |
May 2024
BEFORE FACEBOOK, THERE WAS Black Planet
The Atlantic

BEFORE FACEBOOK, THERE WAS Black Planet

An alternative history of the social web

time-read
10+ mins  |
May 2024
CLASH OF THE PATRIARCHS
The Atlantic

CLASH OF THE PATRIARCHS

A hard-line Russian bishop backed by the political might of the Kremlin could split the Orthodox Church in two.

time-read
10+ mins  |
May 2024
THE MAN WHO DIED FOR THE LIBERAL ARTS
The Atlantic

THE MAN WHO DIED FOR THE LIBERAL ARTS

Chugging through Pacific waters in February 1942, the USS Crescent City was ferrying construction equipment and Navy personnel to Pearl Harbor, dispatched there to assist in repairing the severely damaged naval base after the Japanese attack.

time-read
10+ mins  |
May 2024