Running head: INTRUSION IN REAR WINDOW
Intrusion
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INTRUSION IN REAR WINDOW
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Introduction
The immense of cases focusing on the privacy implications of modern surveillance
technologies are common. Intrusion with seclusion has been a long child of tort law problem.
Courts struggle to have a balance on offering protection on individual seclusion and the freedom
of expression and deeds of the ones who offer a threat to others seclusion. A plaintiff has the
protection of privacy interests from the court in case he shows any of these two things. One is
that he had an actual expectation of privacy and the expectation was reasonably objective.
Second, is that the intrusion to privacy was highly offensive.
Some of the technologies have the ability to discover from conditions and facts that
people may broadcast unknowingly. In such a case, it can be disputed that there is no actual
expectation of privacy in the information. More to this technology have the ability to gather
private information legitimately in an unobtrusive way that makes it hard to categorize it as
highly offensive (Brower, 2016). Due to this reason, many victims of intrusion will experience
tough tasks to meet the required proof threshold.
In Rear Window, Jeffries surveillance can be termed not to be technologically mediated
at first. This raises the issue of justification of surveillance. The viewer of the movie raises an
ethical problem that relates to ethical justification of the potential privacy threat of the watching.
Jeffrey speculations involving questioning ethical grounds of his deeds show an ambiguity as he
finds spying justified if it leads to solving a crime (Dolin, 2016). According to Hitchcock
watching other people for pleasure especially voyeuristic is a common human characteristic.
When questioned of the main character Jeffries being a snooper he says, “Sure, he’s a snooper
but aren’t we all? I’ll bet you that nine out of ten people if they see a woman across the courtyard
undressing for bed, or even a man pottering around in his room, will stay and look.
A professional photographer, Jeffries who is disabled after breaking his leg in the process
taking daring photographs in a motor race at the expense of his comfort takes advantage of his
situation and start snooping. In his usual snoop activity, he strips on Thorwald’s acts that are
weird of leaving and coming back to the house quite a number of times in the house in nighttime
carrying his suitcase and a large knife cleaning (Brower, 2016). Jeffries picks the binoculars but
somehow delays when he considers his voyeuristic intentions and then discovers that the camera
can act as an alibi for the viewing to replace the ill-suited curiosity with the cool distance of
work. Due to the immobility of broken leg, the ability to act is deprived and he gives instructions
to Stella and Lisa to work on his behalf.
Jeffries and his colleague's actions can be treated as an intrusion upon seclusion going
contrary to laws that guarantee the right to privacy. For example, his actions to peep and
surveillance through the windows of his neighbours are an invasion of privacy. He intrudes into
the neighbour private affairs solitude and the intrusion would be objective to a reasonable
person. Privacy invasion in Rear window is an unjustifiable intrusion into the personal life of
Thorwald without consent. The causes of tort types of invasion in the movies are intrusion upn
seclusion and public disclosure of private facts.
INTRUSION IN REAR WINDOW
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References
Brower, S. (2016). Channelling Rear Window. Journal of Popular Film and Television, 44(2),
89-98.
Dolin, S. (2016). Rear Window: The Ethics of Seeing and Telling. Witness, 29(1), 26-44.