4 ms·

Three related cases come to mind: 1. Secrecy in matters like, well, diplomacy. 2. Protection from reprisal. 3. Confidentiality of people other than the publi

by celoyd 16y ago

Three related cases come to mind: 1. Secrecy in matters like, well, diplomacy. 2. Protection from reprisal. 3. Confidentiality of people other than the public servants. A lot of government work deals with heavily stigmatized things other than crime – poverty, disease, etc. It’s hard to record a social worker without bringing unjustly harmful attention to the people they work with. I strongly agree with your general principle. I just don’t think it would work without some compromises.

lhnn 16y ago
I agree. Even when dealing with officers, sometimes the conversations that take place have confidential or otherwise private information that should not be available to the public. However, if the citizen wants it, they should be able to record all interactions they have with servants.
rflrob 16y ago
Can you elaborate on 2 a bit? As to the other points, I should clarify my statement above: I only meant that they should have no expectation of privacy from the person they're dealing with. Planting a bug in the police station or eavesdropping on a conversation to which you aren't a party seem reasonable to leave as illegal. I'm tempted to agree with other commenters that recording any conversation to which you are a party should be okay, but I haven't given it enough thought. For diplomacy, it seems like the people who would be doing the recording would most likely be other diplomats, and therefore immune from US law anyways. Case 3, it's easy enough to just say that while the social worker has no expectation of privacy, their clients do. If someone is having an interaction with the social worker where someone else's confidential information is disclosed, the social worker is the one who has messed up here, with the person recording it being, at most, auxiliary.
- celoyd 16y ago
  You seem to be trying to disagree with a comment that basically agrees with yours. The points you raise are covered by common-sense interpretations of what I said. On point 2 specifically: as hard as it might be to imagine in the US at the moment, in many times and places people doing legitimate law enforcement are intimidated by gangs. This ends up being bad for everyone. While it’s rarely a problem here and now, it ought to be protected against.

by celoyd 16y ago

lhnn 16y ago

I agree. Even when dealing with officers, sometimes the conversations that take place have confidential or otherwise private information that should not be available to the public. However, if the citizen wants it, they should be able to record all interactions they have with servants.

rflrob 16y ago

Can you elaborate on 2 a bit? As to the other points, I should clarify my statement above: I only meant that they should have no expectation of privacy from the person they're dealing with. Planting a bug in the police station or eavesdropping on a conversation to which you aren't a party seem reasonable to leave as illegal. I'm tempted to agree with other commenters that recording any conversation to which you are a party should be okay, but I haven't given it enough thought. For diplomacy, it seems like the people who would be doing the recording would most likely be other diplomats, and therefore immune from US law anyways. Case 3, it's easy enough to just say that while the social worker has no expectation of privacy, their clients do. If someone is having an interaction with the social worker where someone else's confidential information is disclosed, the social worker is the one who has messed up here, with the person recording it being, at most, auxiliary.

celoyd 16y ago
You seem to be trying to disagree with a comment that basically agrees with yours. The points you raise are covered by common-sense interpretations of what I said. On point 2 specifically: as hard as it might be to imagine in the US at the moment, in many times and places people doing legitimate law enforcement are intimidated by gangs. This ends up being bad for everyone. While it’s rarely a problem here and now, it ought to be protected against.