respectfully, your post is misleading. it's not there there isn't an "absolutist view of privacy rights", it's that there is a very narrow "right to privacy."

respectfully, your post is misleading. it's not there there isn't an "absolutist view of privacy rights", it's that there is a very narrow "right to privacy." i put "right to privacy" in quotes because whether it exists at all is debatable (i take no view on the issue). i'm talking about privacy from a constitutional standpoint. "private" documents/information are tangentially protected by various rules of procedure and statutes. for instance, a request for documents should have probative value outweighing the request's burden. however, i don't believe that there are privacy rights per se in very much or any of this. the disclosure of a litigant's private information within the context and scope of litigation is the rule, not the exception. some people's favorite pastime is embarrassing their enemies through litigation. i have some sense of what that's like, having read thousands of litigants' personal emails.