A common argument made to justify First Amendment restrictions on privacy torts and defamation law is that legal liability will chill the media. I am generally sympathetic to these arguments, though only to a point. I think these arguments are often overblown. An interesting point of comparison is the UK, where there is a much weaker protection of free speech and much stronger defamation law. Although the UK has not embraced all of the privacy torts recognized in the United States, it has come close, recognizing a robust tort of breach of confidence. Despite the lack of a First Amendment equivalent, and the stronger legal liability for gossip and libel, the press in the UK seems anything but chilled or cowed. Consider J.K. Rowling’s recent testimony:
Professor Paul Schwartz (Berkeley Law School) and I have just posted our new article to SSRN: 
In United States v. Jones, FBI agents installed a GPS tracking device on Jones’ car and monitored where he drove for a month without a warrant. Jones challenged the warrantless GPS surveillance as a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The D.C. Circuit agreed with Jones.
There are some new details emerging in the Tyler Clementi cyberbullying case at Rutgers. The case involves freshmen at Rutgers University. Dharun Ravi used a webcam to film and broadcast online an intimate encounter between his roommate Tyler Clementi and another man.
