Should a person, upon being taken into custody, have a right to privacy?

[Stinky The Clown]

The first time this struck as more than one of those small issues of the sort I imagine many of us tend to ignore was when John "Cloak The Statue's Tits in Blue" Ashcroft called Steven Hatfill a "person of interest" in the anthrax killer case, effectively ruining the man's life. The feds later settled with Hatfill to the tune of many, many taxpayer bux.

Today, some kid from Middletown, CT was taken into custody on a body search warrant in the case of the Yale student who was found murdered. He was described as a person of interest, but has subsequently been released.

He may or may not be guilty. That is not the issue here.

The issue is: should he have to suffer having his name made public and his image splashed all over the world as a de facto murder suspect before he is, in fact, so named?

Or, does he have a right to privacy up until the time he is actually charged - or at least arrested?

I am sure there's law on this, but I'm asking more about what is morally right.

I think his name, and the names of anyone else, for that matter, should have been kept out of the public eye until such time as he is actually arrested and charged.



What do you think?