Everybody knows what they mean when they say "privacy," but when it's used in a legal context the word turns squishy and slippery. For instance, it's difficult to grasp why Barbra Streisand sued a photographer last year for invasion of privacy because her estate appeared in two aerial pictures he took of the California coastline for an environmental study.
Babs lost. She's been a celebrity so long that privacy battles have become a kind of reflex action. A more calculated action was at work on March 16 when the daughter of politician Makiko Tanaka won an injunction against Shukan Bunshun for printing an article about her divorce, which she claimed was a violation of her privacy. The Tokyo District Court ordered Bunshun to stop shipment of the magazine the morning it went on sale.
The copies that made it to stores sold like hot cakes, so rather than prevent the public from reading about her divorce, Tanaka's daughter made sure that everyone did. But the real purpose of the complaint was for Makiko Tanaka to call Bunshun's bluff.
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