"Harassment"
- The defendant's publications hit each of the foundations of Section 2(9) to the Protection of Privacy Law. However, in its conduct, at the same time, another alternative to the invasion of privacy, this in section 2(1) to the law. This section sees an invasion of privacy as a "harassment" of a person. He lists several alternatives: "[An invasion of privacy is] Detectives or traces a person, which may harass him, or other harassment".
Again, we are dealing with a vague concept that requires interpretation. "What is other harassment?" - The Supreme Court asked itself in an expanded panel of judges. The answer was formulated by the Honorable President Meir Shamgar:
"The term 'harassment' comes to complete the circle of a variety of methods of deliberate disclosure of a person's private affairs, which cannot be included in the concepts of detectives or traceability. What is other harassment? This may include an act [disclosure of private matters] [which] may exclude a person from his peace, from his sense of personal security and from his feeling that he can conduct his life for himself, without his private affairs becoming a display to others, and thus the harassment of the act and the violation of privacy that arises from it" (Additional Hearing 9/83 Military Court of Appeals v. Vaknin, IsrSC 42(3) 837, 852 (1988)).
In another case, the President ruled, individually, that "telephone calls that burden a person's time" will be considered harassment, since they are among the types of actions in which "an appeal to a person in words or actions that may disturb him from his rest or from engaging in such matters that he chooses voluntarily" (Criminal Appeal 526/90 Adv. Balzer v. State of Israel, IsrSC 45(4) 133; 175 (1991)). In a third case, which dealt with harassment by telephone and facsimile, the Honorable Justice Elyakim Rubinstein ruled: "The value that is generally protected is the dignity of a person, and sometimes he will wear the garment of privacy and privacy of the individual. If we wish, a person's peace of mind is his privacy, it is also his dignity. It is possible to harass a person with repeated phones and faxes. Sometimes the content will be prominent, and then the number of times the harassment is carried out will be less important, and sometimes the form will be prominent, and its amount will prevail over content that is not very disturbing in itself... Just as a person has the right to be physically protected, so does his right to be mentally protected; his home is his fortress - and the telephone is his home extension. Moreover, the telephone in his place of work may belong to his employer, but at moments when its use is private, he is entitled to privacy that will not be disturbed" (Criminal Appeals Authority 10462/03 Harar v. State of Israel, IsrSC 60(2) 70, 80; 92 (2005)). "Even penetration into a person's 'virtual' private space," added the Honorable Justice (Ret.) George Kara, "impairs a person's ability to rest in this space and control it, thereby violating his autonomy and dignity" (Criminal Appeals Authority 4743/20 Leibel v. State of Israel, at paragraph 21 of his judgment (published on the Judiciary website, July 21, 2022)).
- In our case, as superfluous, they quote the term "harassment". What the defendant sought to do, and what it actually did to each of the plaintiffs, was to cause harassment in the most common and fundamental sense. The defendant did not do so alone. She was joined by all those intelligent people, who were quick to use the information she gave them and absorbed, very well, the message in her records: they called or sent messages to the plaintiffs, on a scale that none of them asked for themselves, on matters that none of them had anything to do with them, all in order to disturb, disrupt, ridicule, and exclude peace from their sole authority. There is no more obvious harassment than this, and it is an invasion of privacy, as defined In section 2(1) to the law.
- I will note, even though this did not arise in the defense's arguments, that tort law does not confer protection on the defendant only because it was others who actually harassed him. Article 12 The Torts Ordinance and its title: "Liability of an accomplice and solicitor" allows for the imposition of liability also on "aiding, advising or seducing an act committed by another", and it is the defendant who is the defendant. She met all the conditions set out in the case law: she contributed to an act of wrongdoing, she knew "where things would go", she meant that her readers would harass the plaintiffs, and that harassment was a "natural act" of her publications (Civil Appeal 6871/99 Rinat v. Rom, IsrSC 72, 84 (Justice Rivlin) (2002). See also Civil Appeal 5977/07 The Hebrew University of Jerusalem v. Schocken House Publishing Ltd., in paragraphs 20 and 21 (published on the Judiciary website, June 20, 2011); Civil Appeal (Tel Aviv District) 52301-10-20 Drucker v. Eliasi, paragraph 18 of the judgment of the The Honorable Judge Yona Etdegi (Published in the databases, January 23, 2022)).
The Normative Element in the Torts of Invasion of Privacy
- The first section The Protection of Privacy Law instructs:
| "1. Prohibition of Invasion of Privacy |
A person shall not violate the privacy of another without his consent." |