5 ms·

It's a slightly different point, and it might be more important. Most of us break the law, right now, and not even including examples of ridiculous laws. A lack

It's a slightly different point, and it might be more important. Most of us break the law, right now, and not even including examples of ridiculous laws. A lack of privacy on the data we generate could incriminate us in ways that we didn't set up our justice system to handle.

potatolicious 17y ago
Devil's advocate: if lack of privacy was a level playing field (i.e., nobody has privacy from anyone else) maybe we will finally start looking at all of the illegal activities in the lawbooks and start narrowing them down to actual activities we'd like to make illegal.
- olliesaunders 17y ago
  I completely agree, but sadly, I don't think this will happen before countless people are thrown in jail for breaking them.
  - eru 17y ago
    And you won't get complete lack of privacy anytime soon. Selective privacy is what we face.
    - calcnerd256 17y ago
      How can we then tip from one equilibrium to the other?
      - eru 17y ago
        Interesting question. But --- do we want to?
        calcnerd256 17y ago
        Is the move Pareto-optimal?
  - randallsquared 17y ago
    Millions of people are currently in jail for breaking useless laws, and spreading understanding of that may be the best way to stop it.
    - orborde 17y ago
      Bear in mind that most of those are drug-related. Stuff that the people involved are well aware is illegal. This means that our prison populations are not really good examples to wield in the service of reducing the number of obscure laws that could be used to convict anyone at any time.
- tibbon 17y ago
  Unfortunately even when we know of a law being stupid, against the will of the people and against its own initial intent- we still continue to enforce it and ruin people's lives. Hoping for understanding judges isn't a good answer and if they strike down a law many will say they are "legislating from the bench" and bring politics into it. You don't have to look further than the cases of teens currently being branded as sex offenders for sending each other photos of themselves.
- roc 17y ago
  How long have file-sharing lawsuits been dragging on for? Perhaps we just haven't hit the magic number of glaring errors and perversions of justice that will bring change.
  - Silhouette 17y ago
    I wish people would stop bringing up file-sharing in the privacy debate. It's a terrible example, for the simple reason that a lot of people are breaking the law and hiding behind legal technicalities to get away with it, and the law itself is not self-evidently unreasonable in providing the concept of copyright. Yes, there have been miscarriages of justice, and there have been abuses of the legal system (particularly in the US, which in my studious and considered opinion has a dumb legal system that encourages such actions by the big boys with vast legal warchests). Of course these things are bad and legal systems that allow them would be better if they had stronger safeguards to protect the innocent. But if you look at the big picture, there are a lot of people (mostly young ones) growing up with this unhealthy attitude that anything you can physically do is OK and you can take what you want for free because you'll get away with it. Shielding those people from being held accountable, on a pretense of defending privacy, is not going to make society any more enlightened, it's just going to raise a generation of people who don't think about anyone but themselves.
    - roc 17y ago
      potatolicious argued that perhaps if we saw injustice, we'd move to correct things. I'm arguing, simply, that the RIAAs lawsuits are chock full of injustice: a flawed core conceit (that IP addresses can identify individuals), lawbreaking (unlicensed PIs) and piles of collateral damage (file-sharing grandmothers?). It's not that I think file-sharers should be able to violate copyright law. It's that I see no evidence that the public is particularly motivated by injustice to seek change.
      - Silhouette 17y ago
        > I'm arguing, simply, that the RIAAs lawsuits are chock full of injustice: a flawed core conceit (that IP addresses can identify individuals), lawbreaking (unlicensed PIs) and piles of collateral damage (file-sharing grandmothers?). The problem I have with this argument is that, despite all the legal chicanery, the chances are that most people the RIAA are going after really did do it. I understand the desire not to punish the innocent, and the reaction of the public when such stories make the headlines, but don't forget the other perspective: big media companies may adopt naive policies in an attempt to reduce piracy, but the guys running them are staring at 10 people, knowing that 9 of them are ripping them off, and listening to lawyers telling them they can't have any money back because no-one can prove to some practically unachievable degree of certainty who the 10th is. > It's that I see no evidence that the public is particularly motivated by injustice to seek change. This is a big problem with a lot of legal issues relating to modern technology and the new abilities it gives us. The implications of fundamental shifts like having the Internet or being able to store and analyse vast quantities of data probably won't be fully understood even by interested parties or expert observers for several years. The average guy on the street will probably never appreciate some of the subtleties in any given area of law, even if it does affect him, because unfortunately people don't always think things through and research the facts before forming opinions. For example, how many people in any given copyright debate on a geek-friendly forum will ignore the fact that big business is mostly owned by institutional investors who run things like pension funds? Mass copyright infringement is not a "victimless crime", and it doesn't just hurt "those big studios who were ripping us off for years". It hurts people's savings accounts, and pension funds, because when profits are reduced at the big media companies, the values of the investments goes down. At this point, someone traditionally trots out the old "illegal copy != lost sale" argument, again invoking something that while true some of the time is clearly not true of a lot of illegal ripping. And so the argument continues, with the critics using individual cases that appeal to emotional responses, wilfully ignoring the big picture because it's "just greedy businesses taking the hit, not real people". This is why it is important for laws to be made by people who have spent the time to look at the facts, think through the implications, and then adopt a policy that is consistent with principles the general public support when fully aware of the implications. But it is then incumbent on those who make the laws to justify them on demand to a sceptical public, and right now this is where the copyright brigade are failing miserably.
- mattmiller 17y ago
  The problem is that these stupid laws are selectively enforced. There are so few people that are prosecuted that the normal population doesn't care enough to throw a fit. We would need an auto-prosecute system so that whenever anyone breaks a dumb law they are inconvenienced (at least), then enough people will be affected to changes things.
- pyre 17y ago
  The other point is that with 100% lack of privacy, hopefully this means that the public can now also policy the government. (e.g. with cameras being cheap and everywhere, now it's no longer my word against some random-police-officer-with-a-chip-on-his-shoulder's word)
  - Vivtek 17y ago
    The problem being that the keeper of the records and the random police officer know one another, and those records "unfortunately" get lost. Unless somebody's got a grudge against the random officer, of course. But you're still dependent on the guy with the power.
    - pyre 17y ago
      I'm not talking 1984-the-police-own-all-the-cameras. It becomes cheap enough that some random person walking down the street can point a cellphone at the event as it happens, or a store owner's security camera can catch it on film, etc. Unless you are trying to imply that every random person will just happen to be friendly with any random police officer that gives you trouble.
      - nitrogen 17y ago
        I've heard (though I can't substantiate) that in some locations it is illegal to record, film, or photograph a police officer performing his or her duties. So, if this is true, in your scenario evidence of officers misbehaving wouldn't help you because it was obtained illegally.
        krakensden 17y ago
        YouTube changes the balance of power though. Before the case goes to trial, the entire jury pool has seen the police officer do whatever it is they did.
      - Vivtek 17y ago
        This is a damned good point that I hadn't considered. You're right.

potatolicious 17y ago

Devil's advocate: if lack of privacy was a level playing field (i.e., nobody has privacy from anyone else) maybe we will finally start looking at all of the illegal activities in the lawbooks and start narrowing them down to actual activities we'd like to make illegal.

olliesaunders 17y ago
I completely agree, but sadly, I don't think this will happen before countless people are thrown in jail for breaking them.
- eru 17y ago
  And you won't get complete lack of privacy anytime soon. Selective privacy is what we face.
  - calcnerd256 17y ago
    How can we then tip from one equilibrium to the other?
    - eru 17y ago
      Interesting question. But --- do we want to?
      - calcnerd256 17y ago
        Is the move Pareto-optimal?
- randallsquared 17y ago
  Millions of people are currently in jail for breaking useless laws, and spreading understanding of that may be the best way to stop it.
  - orborde 17y ago
    Bear in mind that most of those are drug-related. Stuff that the people involved are well aware is illegal. This means that our prison populations are not really good examples to wield in the service of reducing the number of obscure laws that could be used to convict anyone at any time.
tibbon 17y ago
Unfortunately even when we know of a law being stupid, against the will of the people and against its own initial intent- we still continue to enforce it and ruin people's lives. Hoping for understanding judges isn't a good answer and if they strike down a law many will say they are "legislating from the bench" and bring politics into it. You don't have to look further than the cases of teens currently being branded as sex offenders for sending each other photos of themselves.
roc 17y ago
How long have file-sharing lawsuits been dragging on for? Perhaps we just haven't hit the magic number of glaring errors and perversions of justice that will bring change.
- Silhouette 17y ago
  I wish people would stop bringing up file-sharing in the privacy debate. It's a terrible example, for the simple reason that a lot of people are breaking the law and hiding behind legal technicalities to get away with it, and the law itself is not self-evidently unreasonable in providing the concept of copyright. Yes, there have been miscarriages of justice, and there have been abuses of the legal system (particularly in the US, which in my studious and considered opinion has a dumb legal system that encourages such actions by the big boys with vast legal warchests). Of course these things are bad and legal systems that allow them would be better if they had stronger safeguards to protect the innocent. But if you look at the big picture, there are a lot of people (mostly young ones) growing up with this unhealthy attitude that anything you can physically do is OK and you can take what you want for free because you'll get away with it. Shielding those people from being held accountable, on a pretense of defending privacy, is not going to make society any more enlightened, it's just going to raise a generation of people who don't think about anyone but themselves.
  - roc 17y ago
    potatolicious argued that perhaps if we saw injustice, we'd move to correct things. I'm arguing, simply, that the RIAAs lawsuits are chock full of injustice: a flawed core conceit (that IP addresses can identify individuals), lawbreaking (unlicensed PIs) and piles of collateral damage (file-sharing grandmothers?). It's not that I think file-sharers should be able to violate copyright law. It's that I see no evidence that the public is particularly motivated by injustice to seek change.
    - Silhouette 17y ago
      > I'm arguing, simply, that the RIAAs lawsuits are chock full of injustice: a flawed core conceit (that IP addresses can identify individuals), lawbreaking (unlicensed PIs) and piles of collateral damage (file-sharing grandmothers?). The problem I have with this argument is that, despite all the legal chicanery, the chances are that most people the RIAA are going after really did do it. I understand the desire not to punish the innocent, and the reaction of the public when such stories make the headlines, but don't forget the other perspective: big media companies may adopt naive policies in an attempt to reduce piracy, but the guys running them are staring at 10 people, knowing that 9 of them are ripping them off, and listening to lawyers telling them they can't have any money back because no-one can prove to some practically unachievable degree of certainty who the 10th is. > It's that I see no evidence that the public is particularly motivated by injustice to seek change. This is a big problem with a lot of legal issues relating to modern technology and the new abilities it gives us. The implications of fundamental shifts like having the Internet or being able to store and analyse vast quantities of data probably won't be fully understood even by interested parties or expert observers for several years. The average guy on the street will probably never appreciate some of the subtleties in any given area of law, even if it does affect him, because unfortunately people don't always think things through and research the facts before forming opinions. For example, how many people in any given copyright debate on a geek-friendly forum will ignore the fact that big business is mostly owned by institutional investors who run things like pension funds? Mass copyright infringement is not a "victimless crime", and it doesn't just hurt "those big studios who were ripping us off for years". It hurts people's savings accounts, and pension funds, because when profits are reduced at the big media companies, the values of the investments goes down. At this point, someone traditionally trots out the old "illegal copy != lost sale" argument, again invoking something that while true some of the time is clearly not true of a lot of illegal ripping. And so the argument continues, with the critics using individual cases that appeal to emotional responses, wilfully ignoring the big picture because it's "just greedy businesses taking the hit, not real people". This is why it is important for laws to be made by people who have spent the time to look at the facts, think through the implications, and then adopt a policy that is consistent with principles the general public support when fully aware of the implications. But it is then incumbent on those who make the laws to justify them on demand to a sceptical public, and right now this is where the copyright brigade are failing miserably.
mattmiller 17y ago
The problem is that these stupid laws are selectively enforced. There are so few people that are prosecuted that the normal population doesn't care enough to throw a fit. We would need an auto-prosecute system so that whenever anyone breaks a dumb law they are inconvenienced (at least), then enough people will be affected to changes things.
pyre 17y ago
The other point is that with 100% lack of privacy, hopefully this means that the public can now also policy the government. (e.g. with cameras being cheap and everywhere, now it's no longer my word against some random-police-officer-with-a-chip-on-his-shoulder's word)
- Vivtek 17y ago
  The problem being that the keeper of the records and the random police officer know one another, and those records "unfortunately" get lost. Unless somebody's got a grudge against the random officer, of course. But you're still dependent on the guy with the power.
  - pyre 17y ago
    I'm not talking 1984-the-police-own-all-the-cameras. It becomes cheap enough that some random person walking down the street can point a cellphone at the event as it happens, or a store owner's security camera can catch it on film, etc. Unless you are trying to imply that every random person will just happen to be friendly with any random police officer that gives you trouble.
    - nitrogen 17y ago
      I've heard (though I can't substantiate) that in some locations it is illegal to record, film, or photograph a police officer performing his or her duties. So, if this is true, in your scenario evidence of officers misbehaving wouldn't help you because it was obtained illegally.
      - krakensden 17y ago
        YouTube changes the balance of power though. Before the case goes to trial, the entire jury pool has seen the police officer do whatever it is they did.
    - Vivtek 17y ago
      This is a damned good point that I hadn't considered. You're right.