The right to privacy has been cherished by Americans since the founding, as reflected in the Bill of Rights. In the world of modern technology and consumer data tracking and sharing, the Liberty Justice Center has filed an amicus brief in Salazar v. Paramount Global to stand up for this invaluable liberty.
This case centers on the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), a federal law passed to protect the privacy of individuals’ video viewing histories. Michael Salazar has been a subscriber to 247Sports.com, an online sports newsletter owned by Paramount Global, since 2022. Salazar was logged into his Facebook account while accessing 247Sports.com material, which allowed Paramount to share information with Facebook regarding Mr. Salazar’s personal viewing data and digital identifiers without his consent.
Despite being a subscriber to 247Sports.com, both the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that Salazar was not a “consumer” of “goods or services from a video tape service provider” and was therefore not covered by the Act’s protections.
The Liberty Justice Center’s amicus brief argues that, no matter how the Court interprets the statutory rights enumerated in the VPPA, the Court must protect Americans’ constitutional right to privacy in the digital sphere. Companies are collecting, storing, and aggregating vast troves of data that can reveal an individual’s most intimate interests, beliefs, and associations. The VPPA itself may or may not recognize a broad definition of “consumer”; regardless of the specifics of the VPPA, Mr. Salazar retains his constitutional right to privacy. The Court should keep the constitutional rights and digital data privacy interests of the American people in mind when deciding this case.
“Ever-growing aggregations of consumer information create ever-greater privacy challenges,” said Reilly Stephens, Senior Counsel and Director of Amicus Practice for the Liberty Justice Center. “We hope that the Supreme Court addresses these issues with the seriousness they deserve, and respects the rights of Americans in their personal data.”
The outcome of Salazar v. Paramount will have repercussions far beyond this case, as courts will look to it for guidance on interpreting the scope of privacy protections across multiple statutes. Americans have a protected right to privacy and deserve the highest possible protections when seeking out information online without fear of unwarranted surveillance or misuse of their data.
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