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Concerning the dead man's privacy, it doesn't matter, he's dead. What matters is the appearance of decency and respect in death because it matters to the family
by lsh 8y ago
Concerning the dead man's privacy, it doesn't matter, he's dead. What matters is the appearance of decency and respect in death because it matters to the family. The article makes me wonder if the police walked up during the funeral and messed with the corpse, but I really doubt that was the case.
There is no dignified death. Death ceremonies are performed for the living.
- falcolas 8y agoAnd yet desecrating the dead is almost universally panned, because of its effect on the living. Is using a dead person's finger to unlock their phone desecration? The deceased's family seems to think so.
- lsh 8y agoThe corpse was hardly desecrated. It's finger was used in an attempt to figure out why drug dealing killed it. I would posit replacing it's fluids with embalming solution to be more intrusive.
- jessriedel 8y agoWhy do people jump so eagerly to this assumption about the wishes of the dead being unimportant? We honor wishes of the living concerning the exterior world beyond the mere facts about their brain state (e.g., someone can justly want to climb Mount Everest or set a world record, and not just believe they have). Continuing to respest their reasonable wishes after they die is not fundamentally different, e.g., not desecrating their bodies, even if they don't have family who would be upset.
- mc32 8y agoHow would this be different from using someone’s fingerprints to identify them, if they had no ID on them or any other ID method? Is that desecration too?
- larkeith 8y agoMy understanding is that, generally, the purpose of identification is to find living relatives. It's a matter of respect - identification allows for appropriate rites to be provided, while this is taking advantage of the fact that the dead have no rights to use the prints for their own purposes.
- mc32 8y agoOk, but respect of disrespect is not the same as desecration, which is what was being argued. Just because we don’t like something does not mean we dress it up as something else.
- larkeith 8y agoTrue, desecration is too strong a word in my opinion. I'm not familiar enough with other cultures and religions to say whether that would be true for everyone.
- silentguy 8y agoWhether the dead should have the right to privacy is a contentious issue but I think it is indisputable that accessing a dead person's phone violates the privacy of others who had been in contact with him over the phone. He could have private photos, texts, emails of his friends and families who would not want those to be accessed by someone else.
- ubernostrum 8y agoIn the US, at the moment, only the owner of the phone is legally treated as having a privacy interest in it, and that interest ends at at the moment of death. You can argue for this to change -- and there are reasonable arguments to make for change! -- but right now it's perfectly legal for police to search a dead person's phone without a warrant.
- koolba 8y agoIf it’s a lawyers phone I’d expect the clients would have a legal claim to privacy.
- mgkimsal 8y agoI could also imagine potential HIPAA issues if the device owner was a medical professional.
- dragonwriter 8y agoOther than the potential that the dead owner’s employer might have to give a breach notification, probably not HIPAA issues. HIPAA restricts what health insurers and providers do with your data, but it doesn't restrict third parties from attempting to get information that the covered entities aren't allowed to give.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
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- hnaccy 8y agoWe respect certain rights of the dead because we will eventually join them.
- lsh 8y agoI disagree, we respect the dead because it makes living with memories of the dead person's life easier, and we don't want those memories tarnished. It's also nice to think we'll be remembered fondly in turn when we die, but it won't matter - we'll be dead!
- solarengineer 8y agoThe phone would belong to those who inherit his estate. What if the corrupt cops use the information found in the phone to steal all or part of that man's estate? The US cops are already known to steal from the living.
- lsh 8y agoThere was no mention of corruption, just some ham-fisted investigation. That is an interesting point about the phone belonging to the estate though. It wasn't mentioned in the article.
- Clubber 8y agoIt's not corruption; well not individual corruption. It's legal seizure. Police can seize all kinda stuff, even if you didn't do anything illegal. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/03/06/justice-thomas-sharply-criticizes-civil-forfeiture-laws/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.854323753a25 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... The drug war has turned this country upside down.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pmoriarty 8y ago"Death ceremonies are performed for the living." There are all sorts of other beliefs about death out there. Quite a lot of people believe in the afterlife, that the dead can observe what the living do, and be pleased or upset by it. Some believe that specific burial rites must be performed in order for the soul of the deceased to rest or go to an afterlife or to not bother the living, and that the body must be intact for this to happen.
- lsh 8y agoAbsolutely. I keep the Tibetan 'sky burial' in mind often these days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial and some videos if you're not squeemish: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sky+burial https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sky+burial But ultimately these are beliefs that are held by living people, shaped by culture and time. > and that the body must be intact for this to happen. again, the corpse wasn't desecrated or cut up. It's fingerprint was used to access a phone in an attempt to solve a crime affecting living people.
- vortico 8y ago>Concerning the dead man's privacy, it doesn't matter, he's dead. Religious people who believe in afterlife would disagree with this, so I think it's still a valid point to discuss in general, although it might not be the point in this particular case.
- lsh 8y agoThe man is objectively dead and loss of privacy doesn't affect it any more. The living - you, me, the family of the dead man - want that corpse and the memories we associate with it treated with a certain level of respect. I'm not sure how religious you must be to become hysterical that a dead finger was placed on a phone to help solve a crime.
- 21 8y agoIt's just another case of rich versus poor, famous versus nobody. Imagine if that dead man was Steve Jobs or Prince or the CEO of some big bank, what policeman would dare to attempt such a thing.
- tinus_hn 8y agoIt is also quite a dangerous precedent, considering he was killed by the police.
- amriksohata 8y agoAgree with all of that except the last sentence, some Eastern religions believe the death ceremony of cremation and it's associated ceremonies are required to help the individuals soul move onto its next body and not be trapped