Privacy and public spaces (was: Complacency)

[ThosStew@aol.com]

In a message dated 7/4/01 9:24:24 AM, deafbox@hotmail.com writes:

<< There is an irony is the courts' claim that no one 

has an expectation of privacy in public areas. In 

fact, public areas are where we have our greatest 

privacy, in many regards. The fact that no one 

knows where you are, that it (formerly) was 

impossible to effectively survey public areas >>

This is why, historically, cities and towns have been the freest places (in 
terms of both civil and economic freedom) in societies. It's why Pattie 
Hearst ought to have hid out on the Upper West Side ofManhattan, not in a 
small town. It's why misfits--depending on  the epoch and the society, these 
might be Jews, gay people, artists, drunks, mentally unstable people, people 
of mixed race--have  gathered in cities. The story about Tampa's installing 
surveillance cameras to scan passers by and match their faces agaisnt a 
digital book of mug shots is, in the profoundest and most literal sense of 
the world, uncivil. It's deeply wrong. 

Tom