William & Mary Law School William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository Faculty Publications Faculty and Deans 3-2020 Candidate Privacy Rebecca Green William & Mary Law School,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs Part of the Election Law Commons, and the Privacy Law Commons Repository Citation Green, Rebecca, "Candidate Privacy" (2020). Faculty Publications. 2006. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/2006 Copyright c 2020 by the authors. This article is brought to you by the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs CANDIDATE PRIVACY Rebecca Green* Abstract: In the United States, we have long accepted that candidates for public office who have voluntarily stepped into the public eye sacrifice claims to privacy. This refrain is rooted deep within the American enterprise, emanating from the Framers' concept of the informed citizen as a bedrock of democracy. Voters must have full information about candidates to make their choices at the ballot box. Even as privacy rights for ordinary citizens have expanded, privacy theorists and courts continue to exempt candidates from privacy protections. This Article suggests that two disruptions warrant revisiting the privacy interests of candidates. The first is a changing information architecture brought on by the rise of the internet and digital media that drastically alters how information about candidates is collected and circulated. The second is a shift in who runs for office. As women and minorities-targets of the worst forms of harassment-increasingly throw their hats in the ring, this Article argues that competing democratic values should challenge previous assumptions about candidate privacy.