That's not a right to privacy...at least as precedent is concerned. Once you've done something that has a public impact, or even, involved in something that is now in the public attention, a U.S. news organization can make the case that information about you is of public interest.
Take the Amtrak engineer in the recent Philadelphia crash...as far as I can tell, he most definitely would like to remain out of the spotlight. Yet, because he happened to be the engineer at the time of the crash -- whether or not we know that he directly or even indirectly contributed to the crash -- news orgs have some legal protection in scrutinizing his life, including where he went to school, his job history, and any public social media postings.
Sometimes privacy is accorded out of tradition or convention...for example, the identity of a rape victim who is testifying in a court case is public information, though it is rarely reported except under special circumstances. But in this case, the victim did not intentionally put themselves in this position of public interest, but because court cases are considered to be important for the public to know about, the victim's identity is considered public information.
It should be said that nothing is completely cut and dry, there's always a tension between the public's right to know and privacy. But the right of privacy is usually afforded to victims and for people whom public exposure would cause greater harm than censorship -- i.e. the identity of witnesses in a state case. Bitcoin's creator does not seem to fall into this category.
>Once you've done something that has a public impact, or even, involved in something that is now in the public attention, a U.S. news organization can make the case that information about you is of public interest.
Except there isn't evidence that this guy is Satoshi. So there isn't evidence that he is a public figure.
Also, choosing not to reveal someone's identity is not censorship.
Take the Amtrak engineer in the recent Philadelphia crash...as far as I can tell, he most definitely would like to remain out of the spotlight. Yet, because he happened to be the engineer at the time of the crash -- whether or not we know that he directly or even indirectly contributed to the crash -- news orgs have some legal protection in scrutinizing his life, including where he went to school, his job history, and any public social media postings.
Sometimes privacy is accorded out of tradition or convention...for example, the identity of a rape victim who is testifying in a court case is public information, though it is rarely reported except under special circumstances. But in this case, the victim did not intentionally put themselves in this position of public interest, but because court cases are considered to be important for the public to know about, the victim's identity is considered public information.
It should be said that nothing is completely cut and dry, there's always a tension between the public's right to know and privacy. But the right of privacy is usually afforded to victims and for people whom public exposure would cause greater harm than censorship -- i.e. the identity of witnesses in a state case. Bitcoin's creator does not seem to fall into this category.