4 ms·

Why does it matter to them?

by fche 9y ago

ivanbakel 9y ago
Because the very act of being on private land means relinquishing some rights to the property owner. I don't like the idea of suddenly being under the jurisdiction of private security just because I walked into an non-distinct private area. Especially since, as the article shows, plenty of them enforce regulations you may not know the details of.
elthran 9y ago
Because they are then subject to the private rules that the landowner enforces, without realising it, as is pointed out multiple times in the article
- fche 9y ago
  The article is long on words and on Concern, but short on actual compact statement of the problem. Can you help me out here and list some of these problematic private rules?
  - bleuarff 9y ago
    Another point of the article is that the majority of the land owners refused to answer the question. You don't even know what you can and can't do until you're trespassing. Please RTFA.
    - briandear 9y ago
      Why should landowners talk to the Guardian? It isn’t like that would ever turn out well.
  - iaskwhy 9y ago
    One example from the article: the London City Hall, where the major works from, is in private space so there can't be any demonstrations there. Don't you think this is problematic?
    - anonymousDan 9y ago
      Or the whole City of London, containing many organisations that you could argue were at the root of the financial crisis a few years back.
      - iaskwhy 9y ago
        Yes, along with Canary Wharf, both private places with even private police. But I'd say the City Hall example is a level more problematic than that because that's where you would demonstrate, there's where the decision making is happening. Imagine not being possible to gather in front of the Houses of Parliament...
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  I'm not that familiar with British laws, but what madness is this? Owners of privately-owned public spaces (POPS) need not delineate their property boundaries, or provide any kind of indication when someone may be crossing from a truly public space into a POPS. Owners of POPS may establish rules of acceptable conduct for their space, but are not required to publish them. The only way to discover what those rules are is by breaking one, at which time they may be enforced without prior warning, and with no due process or appeal. The rules may be changed at any time, for any reason, with no notice. That system is so arbitrary and capricious, and so broken, that I can only conclude that it is entirely incompatible with liberal democracy. It is the very soul of plutocratic, pseudo-libertarian oligarchy.
  - fche 9y ago
    How do you feel when you enter a clearly private space such as a shopping mall, or stadium, and they don't publish a 100%-complete set of rules for you? Is it oppressive? How do you feel when you enter public (government) property, but they make available for you thousands of pages of by-laws that govern your behaviour? Is it oppressive?
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      When I enter a stadium or theater, there's a lot of fine print there on the ticket, but generally, it doesn't contain any blatant WTFs and I know that I can't be kicked out arbitrarily without a refund of my entry fee. I don't specifically obey rules I don't know about. If there are any rules I do know about, and don't want to obey, I can easily avoid entering the private property. Going to a football game or rock concert is not an essential part of public life. Malls have no entry fee, but they often post their rules on their websites. I don't feel very oppressed by them, because I don't frequent malls much. I didn't even visit often back when they were popular. Places like Universal City Walk or Disney Springs in Orlando are actually like Hell for me, crowded, noisy, and commercial, and I am pretty uncomfortable with how the Reedy Creek Improvement District is like an independent fiefdom, and the acme of all tourist traps. It sometimes feels like you could be black-bagged and whisked away just for showing too much stress on your face and not having enough money in your pockets. Yes, that's oppressive. And creepy. I don't like it when people look at me like I'm either an overflowing bag of cash to be drained or an unpleasant insect to be shooed away. Rules for public land use are frequently organized by intent, and one does not need to read every last rule on every last page to enjoy any particular use. If you are just day-hiking, you don't need to read the parts about hunting or overnight camping. If you also want to camp or hunt, you can read those sections and not also the parts about cell tower sites or water rights. You also have the knowledge that if any rule for use of public land conflicts with your rights, it is void from the start, and if someone attempts to enforce it against you, you will likely eventually get some compensation. But I have also read some of those thousands of pages of rules, and in some municipalities, yes, they are oppressive. In others, they are mostly reasonable. That also depends in part on the strictness and uniformity of enforcement. Policing for profit can make reasonable rules oppressive, and oppressive rules, laxly enforced, don't seem quite so bad when there is no real penalty for breaking them. In either case, the locals usually have some means by which to change the rules that they may disagree with, including loud and well-attended protest demonstrations. The danger of POPS is that they replace some of the functions of truly public spaces, while leaving out one or more vital functions (like protest and free expression), then those public spaces wither and die, leaving people effectively unable to exercise the vital functions.
vidarh 9y ago
Try pulling out a camera. On public land you may run into idiot police officers that don't know your rights, but mostly they won't bother you. On private land they have the right to tell you to stop and make you leave. Given that e.g. large parts of the pedestrian routes along the Thames for example are private, there substantial stretches where you can't even stand and take pictures of the river where no part of said private property features in the picture, because the property owners have instructed their security to just blanket refuse all permission to take pictures.
- Finnucane 9y ago
  Yep. I've been hassled for having a camera far more often by private security guys than by actual cops.
  - anonymousDan 9y ago
    Yup, I had a painter friend who was painting a scene on Regent's canal and got kicked off by a couple of security guards saying it is private land.

Why does it matter to them?

by fche 9y ago

Why does it matter to them?

Because the very act of being on private land means relinquishing some rights to the property owner. I don't like the idea of suddenly being under the jurisdiction of private security just because I walked into an non-distinct private area. Especially since, as the article shows, plenty of them enforce regulations you may not know the details of.

elthran 9y ago

Because they are then subject to the private rules that the landowner enforces, without realising it, as is pointed out multiple times in the article

fche 9y ago
The article is long on words and on Concern, but short on actual compact statement of the problem. Can you help me out here and list some of these problematic private rules?
- bleuarff 9y ago
  Another point of the article is that the majority of the land owners refused to answer the question. You don't even know what you can and can't do until you're trespassing. Please RTFA.
  - briandear 9y ago
    Why should landowners talk to the Guardian? It isn’t like that would ever turn out well.
- iaskwhy 9y ago
  One example from the article: the London City Hall, where the major works from, is in private space so there can't be any demonstrations there. Don't you think this is problematic?
  - anonymousDan 9y ago
    Or the whole City of London, containing many organisations that you could argue were at the root of the financial crisis a few years back.
    - iaskwhy 9y ago
      Yes, along with Canary Wharf, both private places with even private police. But I'd say the City Hall example is a level more problematic than that because that's where you would demonstrate, there's where the decision making is happening. Imagine not being possible to gather in front of the Houses of Parliament...
logfromblammo 9y ago
I'm not that familiar with British laws, but what madness is this? Owners of privately-owned public spaces (POPS) need not delineate their property boundaries, or provide any kind of indication when someone may be crossing from a truly public space into a POPS. Owners of POPS may establish rules of acceptable conduct for their space, but are not required to publish them. The only way to discover what those rules are is by breaking one, at which time they may be enforced without prior warning, and with no due process or appeal. The rules may be changed at any time, for any reason, with no notice. That system is so arbitrary and capricious, and so broken, that I can only conclude that it is entirely incompatible with liberal democracy. It is the very soul of plutocratic, pseudo-libertarian oligarchy.
- fche 9y ago
  How do you feel when you enter a clearly private space such as a shopping mall, or stadium, and they don't publish a 100%-complete set of rules for you? Is it oppressive? How do you feel when you enter public (government) property, but they make available for you thousands of pages of by-laws that govern your behaviour? Is it oppressive?
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    When I enter a stadium or theater, there's a lot of fine print there on the ticket, but generally, it doesn't contain any blatant WTFs and I know that I can't be kicked out arbitrarily without a refund of my entry fee. I don't specifically obey rules I don't know about. If there are any rules I do know about, and don't want to obey, I can easily avoid entering the private property. Going to a football game or rock concert is not an essential part of public life. Malls have no entry fee, but they often post their rules on their websites. I don't feel very oppressed by them, because I don't frequent malls much. I didn't even visit often back when they were popular. Places like Universal City Walk or Disney Springs in Orlando are actually like Hell for me, crowded, noisy, and commercial, and I am pretty uncomfortable with how the Reedy Creek Improvement District is like an independent fiefdom, and the acme of all tourist traps. It sometimes feels like you could be black-bagged and whisked away just for showing too much stress on your face and not having enough money in your pockets. Yes, that's oppressive. And creepy. I don't like it when people look at me like I'm either an overflowing bag of cash to be drained or an unpleasant insect to be shooed away. Rules for public land use are frequently organized by intent, and one does not need to read every last rule on every last page to enjoy any particular use. If you are just day-hiking, you don't need to read the parts about hunting or overnight camping. If you also want to camp or hunt, you can read those sections and not also the parts about cell tower sites or water rights. You also have the knowledge that if any rule for use of public land conflicts with your rights, it is void from the start, and if someone attempts to enforce it against you, you will likely eventually get some compensation. But I have also read some of those thousands of pages of rules, and in some municipalities, yes, they are oppressive. In others, they are mostly reasonable. That also depends in part on the strictness and uniformity of enforcement. Policing for profit can make reasonable rules oppressive, and oppressive rules, laxly enforced, don't seem quite so bad when there is no real penalty for breaking them. In either case, the locals usually have some means by which to change the rules that they may disagree with, including loud and well-attended protest demonstrations. The danger of POPS is that they replace some of the functions of truly public spaces, while leaving out one or more vital functions (like protest and free expression), then those public spaces wither and die, leaving people effectively unable to exercise the vital functions.

vidarh 9y ago

Try pulling out a camera. On public land you may run into idiot police officers that don't know your rights, but mostly they won't bother you. On private land they have the right to tell you to stop and make you leave. Given that e.g. large parts of the pedestrian routes along the Thames for example are private, there substantial stretches where you can't even stand and take pictures of the river where no part of said private property features in the picture, because the property owners have instructed their security to just blanket refuse all permission to take pictures.

Finnucane 9y ago
Yep. I've been hassled for having a camera far more often by private security guys than by actual cops.
- anonymousDan 9y ago
  Yup, I had a painter friend who was painting a scene on Regent's canal and got kicked off by a couple of security guards saying it is private land.