In each instance we might ask ourselves what is the value which the government is devoting resources to protect? In the case of professional sports they say they want to protect the integrity of the game and to give young boys proper hero images. The first-time I became aware of that argument historically it had to do with a venal professional baseball player with the timeless name of, Shoeless Joe Jackson who was approached by a young boy who implored him, "say it ain't so Joe, say it ain't so." The problem with the Black Sox scandal is that they fixed a World Series so our government rushed to to protect hero images of young boys from the reality of America's pastime as well as the purses of America's gamblers from being cheated.
What high public purpose is served by protecting what this author says to be unarguable, "There’s no question that these photos constitute a flagrant violation of these women’s (and men’s) privacy."
Well I have some question about the obviousness of the violation. Why did these women have standing to invoke the FBI to protect their privacy? At the end of the analysis I would think we will find that it is to protect their celebrity which they themselves have placed in jeopardy.
What does the right of privacy mean when it comes to forbidding others from viewing photographs of ourselves? If the celebrity is out on the street and fully clothed her picture is not protected when taken by paparazzi, unless she is being stalking etc. If the woman is on a public beach and partially clothed, she could likewise have no legal objection.
If the woman is in a movie studio and revealing her breasts and her butt to the cameras, no doubt in pursuit of high cinema art, she certainly would have no complaints if those images appear in a theater. Not incidentally, she is reimbursed for exposing her body knowing full well that the image could be viewed by millions. Likewise, if she is a fashion model and appears on a Victoria's Secret runway she may or may not expose parts of her body including her breasts and her butt, again for money and again to people whom she cannot select or control.
In the case of these photographs they were evidently taken either by the celebrity herself or with her explicit permission. Presumably, they were intended to be viewed by someone else. So the sin here, at least as far as the celebrity herself can maintain, is not that her private parts will be photographed, nor is it that someone might view these private parts because that was the intention of the celebrity when she sent them to someone else or made them available to someone else in the cloud. Apparently the sin for her is that she has lost control over the viewership.
So apparently the problem is not that private parts were photographed or seen by others, the problem is that they were seeing by the wrong others. She now claims that she is humiliated not because these photographs are of her private parts, not that photographs of her private parts will be seen by someone, but that photographs of her private parts will be seen by someone of whom she does not approve. It is not the sanctity of her body that she seeks to protect (she can hardly claim that), nor is it the privacy of her body as she seeks to protect (she is already compromised that), it is the degree of public exposure of photographs of parts of her body which she seeks to control.
What is her motivation? Could it be that it is modesty? Modesty from a woman who makes a living by exposing private parts of her body? Modesty from a woman who has exposed private parts of her body gratuitously to others? I hardly think the taxpayers should detail the FBI for this strained version of modesty. The best explanation, of course, is that she seeks to protect her celebrity in that she seeks to protect the dollar value of exposing her body parts to others in the future. She may have an argument here, after all she has spent efforts, no doubt a small fortune, in league with an army of photographers, agents, movie producers etc. to make the public believe that there is something special about her body parts. It could be that these photographs would disabuse a disinterested (I use the word in a limited sense) viewer that there is anything particularly special about those body parts.
Are we invoking the FBI to protect the innocent public, like our young boy who implored Shoeless Joe Jackson to deny his venality, from exposure to body parts? If so this is a peculiar place to devote our efforts in a world swimming in pornography.
No matter, they also had congressional hearings into the Black Sox scandal of 1919 and perhaps we can enjoy be further titillated by our congressmen looking into this outrageous exposure of private body parts. If there ever was a federal case this is certainly it.
