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Basically the Common Law rule said you could NOT look into someone's house BUT anything else was fair game. Furthermore if a window or Door was open and you could look into the house, what you see from that point was fair game. You can NOT enter the house or report what you saw if you entered the house without permission (Through an exception existed if you saw criminal activities occurring). Basically everything was fair game. The big exception was inside your home.
In fact people had the right to enter land your owned except for your home, any other locked building (i.e. your barn) and the "close" of your home i.e. what we would call your yard, any other land was open to anyone to cross subject to the landowner's right to sue for any damages caused by such people crossing their land. As to "No Trespassing" signs, those were NOT legal till about the 1890s, when Laws were passed making it illegal to enter the property of other if they posted signs against such entrance. I would like to report that this was passed for Privacy reason but that would be false, it was an anti-union act, to prevent union organizers onto the property of the mines and factories that the union wanted to organize but the owners of the mines and factories did not. Some people called this the Anti-Mother Jones act for Mother Jones thought nothing of going into the mines of the US and try to talk people to join the UMW. After it was passed, while in her 60s, she had to walk in an creek that went through the property owned by a mine with her feet in the water, for Pennsylvania law called such creeks "Highways" and thus the No Trespassing signs did NOT apply to it.
Back to Privacy, the general rule if you or anyone else could have seen the act, it is NOT covered by any rule of Privacy. What was covered was what people would expect NOT to be seen by others i.e. what occurred in your home or other lockable building (i.e. an office). Most laws regarding Privacy were passed for other reasons. Juvenal law was passed to get such cases from being in front of Juries, right after women were permitted on juries. One theory is prosecutors thought women would NOT want to convict such people so wanted such cases taken away from Juries, but no way that could pass without some sort of reference to protecting such children. Thus privacy of Juveniles was the price of removing such cases from Juries. In my own practice I have found that concerns of Privacy of Juveniles had more to do with protecting some adult (Teacher, Parents etc) then protecting the Child. Thus the rule again is NOT preventing you from seeing something, but to protect people affects by that sight.
Privacy was a minor concern under the Common law, the concern was more protecting people from getting their hands on records of other people NOT from seeing what people did. Thus the protecting of what was in your home, but NOT what you saw inside the home if invited in or was visible from the outside.
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