Complacency

[Paul Sholtz]

> I've never advocated curtailing free speech, nor have I --- I 
> think --- said
> anything about the social / economic variations of the 
> privacy issue.  IMO, the
> surveillance issue is a social behavior issue, not --- my 
> previous arguments
> about equivalence notwithstanding --- an economic one, under 
> the commom
> interpretation of economics.

Right - I don't think you ever advocated curtialing free speech either. It
was mentioned in a different post in this thread though - I was trying to
respond to two things at once. Sorry for the confusion.

My point in bringing up the social/economic variations in privacy was that
in my experience, when people start talking about privacy rights infringing
on free speech rights, it's usually b/c they don't have the distinctions
between social/economic variations quite clear.. 
 
> The problem is that such information *currently* is both 
> ephemeral and limited
> in scope.  Allowing public surveillance opens the door to 
> such information being
> both persistent and much larger in scope;  this is a scary 
> qualitative change,
> with significant potential impact on public behavior, both 
> good and bad.

I agree completely. It IS a very scary qualitative change.. 
 
> Oh, what a great argument --- let's make bad policy decisions 
> on the basis of
> the "karma" impact the new policies will have. :-( :-(

I'm not advocating one policy decision or another. I'm just stating the
facts of the case at hand. If Joe's relationship w/ Jill is of an innocent
nature, then in the end its likely that none of the actors will be any worse
off for it .. if the relationship wasn't innocent to start w/, then there
would be other "signals" in the Joe's relationship w/ Jane that would tip
her off.. the surveillance is just one (new) way to monitor such signals..
there are other more conventional ways as well..

Policy decisions in this case should, I think, be made per the 4th amendment
and other similar guidelines..

> > But privacy as an economic force is different. One could 
> argue that in the
> > above case, Joe didn't get anything he didn't already deserve.
> 
> I wouldn't.

It depends .. we didn't flesh out the case far enough to really know.

> > I would argue that when personal data is exchanged in a 
> commercial setting, it
> > is exchanged under  contract and you can therefore apply 
> property law to
> > the transaction - property rights over personal data (given to the
> > individual consumer), as the case may be.
> 
> I would agree.  But I don't think the right to not be filmed 
> in public rests
> necessarily on property law;  half of the privacy issue 
> that's come up of late
> requires a new philosophical commitment to privacy as such, 
> not a construction
> from existing principles.

You're right - in general you need an explicit contract to ensure property
rights, and in general there are no explicit contracts in place when you are
being filmed in public. Short of such "contracts" being tied to
"citizenship" (which is probably the only ground rule that covers you "in
public"), you're probably not going to see it.. (and even property rights
aren't really applicable or appropriate to the public filming scenario).