Why the right to privacy should exist even after someone dies

Under the law, the dead no longer possess personal rights. Even in the case of false and malicious statements, the dead enjoy no legal recourse.

But reputation still matters. In fact, the living try to manage their posthumous legacies with tombstone epigraphs, postmortem memoirs and eponymous philanthropy. And the law respects their intentions in a last will, which lawyers defend as contractual obligations. In Shakespeare’s tragedy, “Othello,” the sinister Iago counsels his master, “Who steals my purse steals trash … But he that filches from me my good name / Robs me of that which not enriches him, / And makes me poor indeed.” If we respect the purse of the departed, why not their good name?

Many governments, libraries and archives already have policies that respect the wishes of the deceased through embargo periods and restricted access to the public. Even so, publicly disclosing the private lives of others, especially when divulging their faults, demands a legitimate reason: to understand a historical event or phenomenon — including the history of gossip itself — or even to serve as moral edification for readers, particularly in the case of public figures.