It decried invasions of “the sacred precincts of private and domestic life.” It deplored “the details of sexual relations” being “broadcast in the columns of the daily papers” and the publication of “idle gossip, which can only be procured by intrusion upon the domestic circle.” People should have legal recourse, it suggested, against those who publish private facts about them.įor decades afterward, courts debated whether the right to privacy existed. This irritated Warren, who, even in his undergraduate days, had castigated Boston papers for divulging private facts about Harvard’s secret societies.īrandeis later pointed to Warren’s “deepseated abhorrence of the invasions of social privacy” in explaining why the two men published their famous law-review essay “ The Right to Privacy,” in 1890. Warren was from one of Boston’s wealthiest families, whose doings were fodder for gossip columns when Warren married a senator’s daughter, details of wedding décor, guests, and dresses were extensively covered in national newspapers. The two became close friends and soon formed a law firm together. In 1875, the future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis met his classmate Samuel Warren at Harvard Law School. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
