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Privacy in an Internet-driven World

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Balancing the right to free speech versus a person's right to privacy is not a new issue in the United States. But the dawn of the Internet era has created new questions of privacy that the legal system is struggling to catch up with.

Take for instance one site that photographs women going into abortion clinics and publishes them on the web. The women are in a public place when they are photographed — but don't they have the right not to have the whole world made aware of the difficult decision they have made?

Web sites are inexpensive to create and can easily reach audiences other media can only dream of. In an age when cameras are everywhere, what expectations of privacy should someone have in a public place? Are you fair game to have your all your activities recorded and sent over the web in the name of free speech?

Guests:

Jonathan Zittrain, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School

Neal Horsley, runs the web site that posts photographs and personal information of women who enter abortion clinics

Diane Luby, Massachusetts President of Planned Parenthood

This program aired on June 4, 2002.

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