Do Prisoners Have Fundamental Rights of Privicy Regarding Being Filmed and Photographed ?

In Best v. District of Columbia, 743 F. Supp. 44 (D.D.C. 1990), the court denied defendants' motion to dismiss or for summary judgment against a complaint by prisoners that they were videotaped while chained and handcuffed during transportation between prisons. The court found that the prisoners' privacy rights were violated regardless of whether the film was ever publicly disclosed. Id. at 48. As the Supreme Court has recognized, 'inmates in jails, prisons or mental institutions retain certain fundamental rights of privacy: they are not like animals in a zoo to be filmed and photographed at will by the public or by media reporters, however "educational" the process may be for others.' Houchins v. KQED, Inc., 438 U.S. 1, 5 n. 2, 98 S. Ct. 2588, 57 L. Ed. 2d 553 [(1978)].