> ...are violating the law...the public has a right to know.
There may not be a legal obligation for the public to know, if no violation of the law has occurred, however just because something isn't illegal, does not make it right (abusing animals)
I know that reasoning does not hold from a legal standpoint, but without standing up to unjust laws, the civil rights movement, or marriage equality, and even gender equality would have been severely hampered.
I definitely agree. I believe that most legal theory follows your intuition on this, sorry if I was unclear. Violations of law by public officials was my lowest bar.
But even that's imprecise, some violations of law by public individuals might not even qualify as warranting public scrutiny (a speeding record 20 years ago?), whereas some legal activities by private individuals might warrant public scrutiny and get dropped from this sort of tort, it's very case by case.
I just want to say though that wrt
> ...are violating the law...the public has a right to know.
There may not be a legal obligation for the public to know, if no violation of the law has occurred, however just because something isn't illegal, does not make it right (abusing animals)
I know that reasoning does not hold from a legal standpoint, but without standing up to unjust laws, the civil rights movement, or marriage equality, and even gender equality would have been severely hampered.