Things that make you go "Hmm"
Oct. 3rd, 2012 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexAsserted: a person engaged in wrongdoing should have a lesser expectation of privacy than a person not engaged in wrongdoing.
Agree or disagree?
If you have an opinion one way or another, would you care to say on what your opinion is based?
Historically, US rights protections have not been thought to depend on what the person in question is doing at the time in their private space; however, recently theSupreme Court (ETA: gsh pointed out that I've mixed up a SCOTUS case with a 6th Circuit case) issued an opinion that appeared to say wrongdoers should not be surprised when their privacy is violated by authorities. Interpreted broadly this would be a major change in legal policy; however, it seems to align with how a lot of people think about things. If you're a person doing something wrong you ought not to be surprised when the cops come after you.
Agree or disagree?
If you have an opinion one way or another, would you care to say on what your opinion is based?
Historically, US rights protections have not been thought to depend on what the person in question is doing at the time in their private space; however, recently the
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pedantic hat on
Date: 2012-10-03 06:08 pm (UTC)Is not the same as:
a person engaged in wrongdoing should have a lesser expectation of privacy than a person not engaged in wrongdoing.
Regarding privacy vis a vis wrong doing or not, I HAVE heard a lot of people whom I considered idiots (for saying this) who say "If you're not doing anything wrong, then why should you have to worry about hiding it?"
no subject
Date: 2012-10-03 06:45 pm (UTC)If you can establish that someone is engaged in a criminal act before violating their privacy, you can presumably obtain a warrant, and we have that whole structure in place already.
On the third hand, I tend to find serious concern about privacy to be connected with privilege.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-03 07:57 pm (UTC)Can I even get past the Heisenberg uncertainty issue of "innocent until proven guilty" but "since you are guilty, we can violate your privacy to prove you are guilty"?
And that leads me down to "OK, what are we calling probable cause?", which is close to "If you are acting in a suspicious manner, you have reduced rights to privacy."
So is the suggestion that, above-and-beyond probable cause, wrongerdoers-in-progress can expect to have privacy reduced?
Or that once someone has been proven of one wrongdoing, they forever drop into a second class citizen status at least wrt privacy - sex offender registries would be a (narrow) example of this.
Not sure it makes a difference in my mind, but those are strikingly different impacts...
no subject
Date: 2012-10-03 08:51 pm (UTC)Disagree.
If you have an opinion one way or another, would you care to say on what your opinion is based?
The absence of anything, in the reasons justifying an expectation of privacy, that depends on the rightfulness or wrongfulness of the act.
That said, as a society we tend to get confused about the difference between a social expectation of privacy with respect to a behavior, and social support of that behavior.
For example, many of us think that allowing a practice to remain concealed, but prosecuting it when it is discovered, is pretty much equivalent to tolerating the practice.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-03 08:54 pm (UTC)Determining what is wrongdoing and who is the wrongdoer is the major problem. Commenters woodwardiocom and vibrantabyss have already alluded to this. See also: Trayvon Martin.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-03 09:28 pm (UTC)I'm not going to add much more. I kind of gave up on this country when they gave carte blanche to W. And when they passed the Patriot Act. And when they reelected W. And after the Citizen's United decision. And when assassination became public public policy. I'm basically done.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-03 09:40 pm (UTC)As others have said, if there's strong evidence of wrongdoing before a person's privacy is violated, then there can be a warrant, etc. That's fine, legal, etc.
Deciding after the fact that it's okay to have invaded somebody's privacy if it reveals that they've done something wrong doesn't even make any sense to me unless you're going to also say that it's fine to invade the privacy of people who haven't done anything wrong, in order to see if they've done anything wrong.
Privacy matters because it gives people with less power the opportunity to explore ways of challenging the existing power structures. I can't say firmly that the Transparent Society experiment would be a bad thing, but we have to go all the way. Including the activities of politicians and the police. Maybe especially those.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-03 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-04 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-04 02:49 am (UTC)This, to me, sounds like a special case of Murphy's Law (both the formal/strict version and the colloquial one).
However, you mention 'their private space'. I don't have the mental spoons to look up and assimilate the cases you're alluding to, but I see a possible distinction between 'their private space' and private space not owned by the person, for example a hotel room. Most of my thoughts we're already mentioned by others, and chrome on the nexus is failing to get along with lj's comment field, so I'm going to let the rest pass.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-04 04:12 am (UTC)Not sure the asserion you are claiming is what was asserted
Date: 2012-10-04 04:07 pm (UTC)We do not mean to suggest that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy because Skinner’s phone was used in the commission of a crime, or that the cell phone was illegally possessed. On the contrary, an innocent actor would similarly lack a reasonable expectation of privacy in the inherent external locatability of a tool that he or she bought.