13 ms·

And here is the natural born right to privacy that Americans have, as well as the rest of the world in my own opinion: Bill of Rights, amendment 4: "The right

by dgzl 8y ago

And here is the natural born right to privacy that Americans have, as well as the rest of the world in my own opinion: Bill of Rights, amendment 4: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 8y ago
Devotion to the quasi-religious idea of “natural rights” is not nearly as surprising as the belief that what are very clearly political compromises of the late 18th Century somehow perfectly captured such rights.
- dgzl 8y ago
  Well are you trying to be surprised, or are you trying to defend your natural born rights? It sounds like you're not interested simply because it's redundant.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Well are you trying to be surprised, or are you trying to defend your natural born rights? False dichotomy much? I find the idea of natural rights to be of mixed value (beyond perhaps the case of a single natural right to something that might loosely be stated as that degree of liberty which does not intolerably impinge on the liberty of others), and the idea that the particular details of political compromises made by long-dead politicians define the proper scope of such rights actively harmful to efforts to appropriately balance liberty with other concerned for real live people living today. > It sounds like you're not interested simply because it's redundant. I'm not interested in efforts to treat political compromise as holy writ.
    - dgzl 8y ago
      If I'm understanding you, it sounds like you don't necessarily consider "natural rights" to be the best facilitator for "liberty", and that you're dissatisfied with people who praise that kind of idea. Am I close? If so: what's your point? I'm trying to defend the rights we have, and it seems like you're just arguing about the method at which we assign rights and liberty? You seem really smart, can you give us some tips on saving/changing the system for the better? By the way, those long-dead presidents who created the world's most liberating government framework, were alive less than 300 years ago. That's not long at all.
    - chibg10 8y ago
      >I'm not interested in efforts to treat political compromise as holy writ. The concept of natural rights started with philosophers, not politicians. You seem like you need to do a little more reading on this subject.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > The concept of natural rights started with philosophers, not politicians. No, it started largely with politicians who were also philosophers (whether you look at the ancient roots with Cicero and Seneca or people like Locke who were instrumental in crafting the modern view of natural rights.) But, in any case, it is irrelevant to the bit you quote and respond to, which is about people citing particular provisions of the US Constitution as definitive expressions of natural rights, not about the mere concept of natural rights.
- simplecomplex 8y ago
  ALL human morality is quasi-religious. Democracy is fundamentally a moral philosophy. The crime of murder is "natural rights". Our whole society is built on natural rights.
  - dgzl 8y ago
    And from what I understand, this was a new point of view from governments at the time. The idea of natural born rights was kind of in stark contrast to how governments usually operated: with authority and a lack of respect of human rights.
- int_19h 8y ago
  You don't have to believe that they reflected such rights perfectly, to believe that they did reflect them better than our current arrangements, though.
- CryptoPunk 8y ago
  The concept of natural rights that underlies the Constitution developed over thousands of years through a process that involved both extensive deliberation, and extensive practical experience. We ignore the wisdom of moral tradition to our own detriment.
vkou 8y ago
It's a nice right in theory, but in reality, stop-and-frisk, border control, parallel construction, 'I smelled weed in the car', 'I had a hunch', 'the drug dog gave me a signal', 'we got an anonymous tip (from an illegal search, via parallel construction)' all exist, and are regularly employed in the United States. They also tend to be disproportionately targeted at particular, inconvenient, segments of the population.
- saas_sam 8y ago
  And when those phenomena are fought, it is on the basis of the Constitution.
  - vkou 8y ago
    The success of fighting it only works as well as 'where does public opinion on the issue currently lie'. The constitutionality of a law is a political red herring. My favorite example of this is gay marriage. All the way between 1776 and 2015 it was illegal - yet somehow, magically, in 2015, banning it became unconstitutional. Did the Constitution change in 2015, without us noticing? Did the lawyers advocating for it figure out some sequence of utterances that made a lightbulb go off in the heads of the judges? No. What happened is public opinion changed. The constitution gives you theoretical rights. Whether or not you actually have any of them is a direct product of what the public thinks of you
    - dgzl 8y ago
      Then I ask, why are we having such a tough time defending against illegal digital collection and searching by the government? Doesn't it seem like people care about their privacy from government? If public opinion isn't allowing our 4th amendment to be valued, then what are we doing wrong? How can we show the government that we do indeed want them to stop violating our privacy? Do we have to riot in the streets? I thought that was the entire point of the American Revolution! We already fought for our rights, and yet people try telling me that we're losing them because we're not fighting anymore. Apparently it's entirely acceptable that when we become complacent, that the government can steamroll us for our ignorance?
vxxzy 8y ago
We need to pay attention to the phrase "particularly describing the place to be searched". We need a way to define 'location' within a digital landscape. One possibility is to add a second dimension to the definition. An example: "location and time of storage". I'd like to see us push (as a society) that searches of "information" must notate the very "disk sector"/"network segment"/"geographic point to within 5ft" upon which the information sits AND specify a time limit (can't look at data after x number of years - not solvable right now maybe?).
- dgzl 8y ago
  I would consider digital files to be akin to "papers and effects", and would be subject to the same discretion under a warrant. (I.e. the evidence we're looking for is specifically in this app's chat log from [reasonable date] to [reasonable date])
mtw 8y ago
That's a nice ideal, but in practice, isn't the NSA tracking cell phones and digital chatter? I'm pretty sure if you mention "dhijad", "Bomb", and "US president" with one of your buddy, you'll be added to a list
- dgzl 8y ago
  Many constitutionalists consider three-letter government agencies to have constitution-violating powers that produced evidence that should otherwise be consider null and void by courts.
- joejerryronnie 8y ago
  You've just been added
amitamb 8y ago
India's Supreme Court Upholds Right to Privacy as a Fundamental Right https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/08/indias-supreme-court-upholds-right-privacy-fundamental-right-and-its-about-time https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/08/indias-supreme-court-u... These are new powers and they are intrusive but they will likely get challenged in the court based on above judgement. Honestly though very few of average citizens care for government to take notice.

by dgzl 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dragonwriter 8y ago

Devotion to the quasi-religious idea of “natural rights” is not nearly as surprising as the belief that what are very clearly political compromises of the late 18th Century somehow perfectly captured such rights.

dgzl 8y ago
Well are you trying to be surprised, or are you trying to defend your natural born rights? It sounds like you're not interested simply because it's redundant.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Well are you trying to be surprised, or are you trying to defend your natural born rights? False dichotomy much? I find the idea of natural rights to be of mixed value (beyond perhaps the case of a single natural right to something that might loosely be stated as that degree of liberty which does not intolerably impinge on the liberty of others), and the idea that the particular details of political compromises made by long-dead politicians define the proper scope of such rights actively harmful to efforts to appropriately balance liberty with other concerned for real live people living today. > It sounds like you're not interested simply because it's redundant. I'm not interested in efforts to treat political compromise as holy writ.
  - dgzl 8y ago
    If I'm understanding you, it sounds like you don't necessarily consider "natural rights" to be the best facilitator for "liberty", and that you're dissatisfied with people who praise that kind of idea. Am I close? If so: what's your point? I'm trying to defend the rights we have, and it seems like you're just arguing about the method at which we assign rights and liberty? You seem really smart, can you give us some tips on saving/changing the system for the better? By the way, those long-dead presidents who created the world's most liberating government framework, were alive less than 300 years ago. That's not long at all.
  - chibg10 8y ago
    >I'm not interested in efforts to treat political compromise as holy writ. The concept of natural rights started with philosophers, not politicians. You seem like you need to do a little more reading on this subject.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > The concept of natural rights started with philosophers, not politicians. No, it started largely with politicians who were also philosophers (whether you look at the ancient roots with Cicero and Seneca or people like Locke who were instrumental in crafting the modern view of natural rights.) But, in any case, it is irrelevant to the bit you quote and respond to, which is about people citing particular provisions of the US Constitution as definitive expressions of natural rights, not about the mere concept of natural rights.
simplecomplex 8y ago
ALL human morality is quasi-religious. Democracy is fundamentally a moral philosophy. The crime of murder is "natural rights". Our whole society is built on natural rights.
- dgzl 8y ago
  And from what I understand, this was a new point of view from governments at the time. The idea of natural born rights was kind of in stark contrast to how governments usually operated: with authority and a lack of respect of human rights.
int_19h 8y ago
You don't have to believe that they reflected such rights perfectly, to believe that they did reflect them better than our current arrangements, though.
CryptoPunk 8y ago
The concept of natural rights that underlies the Constitution developed over thousands of years through a process that involved both extensive deliberation, and extensive practical experience. We ignore the wisdom of moral tradition to our own detriment.

vkou 8y ago

It's a nice right in theory, but in reality, stop-and-frisk, border control, parallel construction, 'I smelled weed in the car', 'I had a hunch', 'the drug dog gave me a signal', 'we got an anonymous tip (from an illegal search, via parallel construction)' all exist, and are regularly employed in the United States. They also tend to be disproportionately targeted at particular, inconvenient, segments of the population.

saas_sam 8y ago
And when those phenomena are fought, it is on the basis of the Constitution.
- vkou 8y ago
  The success of fighting it only works as well as 'where does public opinion on the issue currently lie'. The constitutionality of a law is a political red herring. My favorite example of this is gay marriage. All the way between 1776 and 2015 it was illegal - yet somehow, magically, in 2015, banning it became unconstitutional. Did the Constitution change in 2015, without us noticing? Did the lawyers advocating for it figure out some sequence of utterances that made a lightbulb go off in the heads of the judges? No. What happened is public opinion changed. The constitution gives you theoretical rights. Whether or not you actually have any of them is a direct product of what the public thinks of you
  - dgzl 8y ago
    Then I ask, why are we having such a tough time defending against illegal digital collection and searching by the government? Doesn't it seem like people care about their privacy from government? If public opinion isn't allowing our 4th amendment to be valued, then what are we doing wrong? How can we show the government that we do indeed want them to stop violating our privacy? Do we have to riot in the streets? I thought that was the entire point of the American Revolution! We already fought for our rights, and yet people try telling me that we're losing them because we're not fighting anymore. Apparently it's entirely acceptable that when we become complacent, that the government can steamroll us for our ignorance?

vxxzy 8y ago

We need to pay attention to the phrase "particularly describing the place to be searched". We need a way to define 'location' within a digital landscape. One possibility is to add a second dimension to the definition. An example: "location and time of storage". I'd like to see us push (as a society) that searches of "information" must notate the very "disk sector"/"network segment"/"geographic point to within 5ft" upon which the information sits AND specify a time limit (can't look at data after x number of years - not solvable right now maybe?).

dgzl 8y ago
I would consider digital files to be akin to "papers and effects", and would be subject to the same discretion under a warrant. (I.e. the evidence we're looking for is specifically in this app's chat log from [reasonable date] to [reasonable date])

mtw 8y ago

That's a nice ideal, but in practice, isn't the NSA tracking cell phones and digital chatter? I'm pretty sure if you mention "dhijad", "Bomb", and "US president" with one of your buddy, you'll be added to a list

dgzl 8y ago
Many constitutionalists consider three-letter government agencies to have constitution-violating powers that produced evidence that should otherwise be consider null and void by courts.
joejerryronnie 8y ago
You've just been added

amitamb 8y ago

India's Supreme Court Upholds Right to Privacy as a Fundamental Right https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/08/indias-supreme-court-upholds-right-privacy-fundamental-right-and-its-about-time https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/08/indias-supreme-court-u... These are new powers and they are intrusive but they will likely get challenged in the court based on above judgement. Honestly though very few of average citizens care for government to take notice.