The U.S. Supreme Court has been called to weigh in on a high-stakes legal battle that could redefine how much control Americans have over their digital footprints. The Liberty Justice Center officially filed an amicus brief in the case Salazar v. Paramount Global, pushing the nation’s highest court to safeguard constitutional privacy rights in an era of massive data aggregation.
At the heart of the dispute is Michael Salazar, a subscriber to the sports website 247Sports.com, which is owned by Paramount Global. According to legal filings, Salazar accessed the site while logged into his Facebook account.
This connection allegedly allowed Paramount to transmit his personal viewing history and digital identifiers to the social media giant without his knowledge or consent.
The legal tug-of-war focuses on the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), a law originally designed to protect movie rental records that is now being tested by the complexities of the internet. Lower courts have offered conflicting views on how the law applies today.
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While Salazar maintained he was a “consumer” entitled to protection, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee ruled he did not fit the specific legal definition under the act. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit later upheld that ruling, explicitly stating they were “breaking” with the approaches taken by the Second and Seventh Circuits.
This disagreement between federal courts, known as a “circuit split,” has now landed the case on the Supreme Court’s doorstep. The Liberty Justice Center argues that regardless of how the Court interprets the specific wording of the VPPA, the broader constitutional right to privacy must remain the priority.
The organization warns that because companies now collect and store vast amounts of data—revealing intimate interests and personal associations—the digital sphere requires robust protection.
“Ever-growing aggregations of consumer information create ever-greater privacy challenges,” said Reilly Stephens, Senior Counsel and Director of Amicus Practice for the Liberty Justice Center. “We hope that the Supreme Court addresses these issues with the seriousness they deserve, and respects the rights of Americans in their personal data.”
The Liberty Justice Center has a history of involvement in privacy litigation, having previously participated in cases like Scholl v. Illinois State Police and Chatrie v. United States. In this latest filing, the group maintains that the Court should view digital data privacy not just as a statutory issue, but as a fundamental constitutional right belonging to all Americans.
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