I’m not a privacy law expert, so I’m not sure.
All I can say is there’s a common law tort called “invasion of privacy” that allows “an aggrieved party to bring a lawsuit against an individual who unlawfully intrudes into their private affairs, discloses their private information, publicizes them in a false light, or appropriates their name for personal gain.” (See details here.)
I’m thinking publicizing photos of Hunter Biden’s genitals sourced from his (stolen? abandoned? does it make a difference?) laptop might fall in that category.
Ex-GOP strategist Tim Miller puts it more pungently. He said,
“Now if you are one of the normals — someone who would never think about posting another person’s penis on your social media account; has no desire to see politicians’ kids’ penises when scrolling social media; doesn’t understand why there are other people out there who care one way or another about the moderation policies surrounding stolen penis photos; or can’t even figure out what it is that I’m talking about — then this might seem like a gratuitous matter for an article.”
Then added, “Sadly, it is not.” (Read story here.)
By now, it’s well known that Musk is a freak who spent $44 billion to turn Twitter into a rightwing soapbox. Other rightwing freaks built up his “big reveal” of supposedly suppressed internal Twitter communications into a “smoking gun” of presidential involvement in Hunter’s sketchy business deals and sordid personal life. Here’s what they snared:
“[T]the supposed ‘smoking gun’ that initially had a number of GOP commentators up in arms was a message that employees were acting on requests from ‘the Biden team’ to remove tweets — which turned out to be … pictures of Hunter Biden naked.”
Miller also noted the requests came from Joe Biden’s campaign, not a governmental entity, and at “the time of the correspondence in question, Joe Biden was a private citizen running for office.” Miller added,
“Why MAGA Republicans and Elon Musk are so adamant that people be able to post photos of Hunter’s johnson is something that should probably be explored with their respective preachers or psychiatrists.”
But I’m thinking this might be something Hunter may want to explore with his lawyers. Assuming, of course, he didn’t give them permission to lift those pics off his laptop and paste them up in the town square. I’m pretty sure if you or I did that, we’d get sued, and have to pay. Even if it’s not a criminal offense, it’s a tort.
Note that this isn’t libel, so a “public figure” defense doesn’t apply. I’m pretty sure there’s no “public figure” exception to the privacy laws that allow you to post birthday suit photos without the subject’s permission.
Musk, of course, can afford to pay a judgment. To him a few million bucks is nothing, so he should skip the trial, and just write a check. It’ll save him the lawyer expenses.