4 ms·

"These are matters that concern the people and their franchise and their access to resources. This is, therefore, the property of the people". Is this true?

ajross 7y ago
Literally? No, it's her storage device and her data on it. This is a figurative argument about why she wants to release it.
- datashow 7y ago
  How do you know it's her property? I guess it was her father's property and now is in her possession. Does this automatically become her property? The device and the data? I guess we have a generation facing this new problem. I have only seem discussion about how services like Facebook should handle the data of deceased people. I didn't realize your kids (and spouse?) can just take your device and release it. This future seems scary to me.
  - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
    While I certainly don't think all things in the digital space map perfectly to things in the analog space, there's literally centuries of precedence for descendants of someone who's deceased to make decisions about publicly releasing their journals, correspondence, unfinished manuscripts, and so on. Most of Emily Dickinson's poems were published after her death by her sister; author John Kennedy Toole's Pulitzer-prize winning novel A Confederacy of Dunces was discovered and submitted for publication by his mother after he committed suicide; Franz Kafka's The Trial was only published because Kafka's executor defied his dying wish to burn his unpublished works. tl;dr: I don't think the ethical questions here are affected by whether the deceased's writing takes the form of ink on paper or bits on digital storage.
    - datashow 7y ago
      It is true there are relevant precedents. I guess the difference is that in this digital age the scope of data is far greater than data on the paper. I don't know whether this truly matters.
    - mlyle 7y ago
      But some of this data may be subject to other ownership rights, nondisclosure agreements, etc.
      - mirimir 7y ago
        True. And that's probably why she put it online. Before it was too late.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Well, they can unless it's securely encrypted.
  - smkellat 7y ago
    Raw possession does not always equal the legal right to dispose of something. To an extent this could be treated as a very limited scope data breach depending upon who your attorney is in the matter. Litigation outcomes should be interesting since the firm the strategist worked for is suing to regain legal custody of the materials.
    - mirimir 7y ago
      Well, given the torrent, there's a decent chance that it's too late.
  - awb 7y ago
    > How do you know it's her property? She was estranged from her father. After his death, her mother encouraged her to take the hard drives and USBs. Assuming that his wife was the legal owner after his death and it was in fact gifted her then it sounds legit.
    - datashow 7y ago
      This seems only change the subject of question from children to spouse. Does this change the nature of the question? I mean do your spouse automatically own your data when you die?
      - everdev 7y ago
        After death property is passed to the spouse, then kids, then closest surviving relatives, then the state unless instructions are provided otherwise in a will. I assume data is property. In this case the mother already had joint possession (through marriage) of her and her husband's property. While we refer to it as "his USBs" because he probably bought them and used them exclusively, when you're married they are legally owned jointly by you and your spouse. One exception would be if he did the work on behalf of a company and the company paid for the USBs. Then the company could probably sue to have their property returned. Or if he had a contract saying that he had to delete the data after the contract ended, that could probably be enforced as well.
      - astura 7y ago
        Absent a will saying otherwise all of your property is inherited by your next of kin upon your death. Your next of kin is your spouse if you have one. Your property includes your hard drives. Once someone is the owner of property they are usually free to do whatever they want with it, including giving it away.
    - mirimir 7y ago
      I wonder if her mother knew that there was interesting stuff on those devices. Or if she just didn't have any use for them.
  - astura 7y ago
    Her mother inherited the property (hard drives) from her father when he died as his next of kin. Stephanie got back in contact with her mother and her mother gave her the hard drives after she found them in the house and asked if she could have them. Later on the drives were subpoenaed as part of a lawsuit and she made a copy of the contents and handed them over. This is detailed in the New Yorker article linked in TFA. It's not "scary," it's how property law has always worked. If you don't want the contents of your hard drive released by your next of kin then encrypt it.
    - datashow 7y ago
      If the data is not encrypted then all my data can be automatically taken by my spouse and kids, used in any way they want? How is it not scary? I don't see how this is easily comparable to my monetary properties.
      - astura 7y ago
        Your property includes your personal papers, letters, notes, manuscripts, diary, dirty underwear, pornographic magazines, any printed copies of your tax returns, doodles on a notebook, the contents of your wallet, etc, not just "monetary properties" (whatever that means). Once someone is the owner of property they are usually free to do whatever they want with it, including giving it away. This is how property law has worked for literally centuries. I don't think I'll be caring much about what my spouse is doing with the contents of my hard drive if I'm dead.
      - jshaqaw 7y ago
        I don’t mean to be glib here but if you are dead do you really care? If you can’t trust your spouse and kids after death then maybe you need to reconsider your relationship choices?
      - ajross 7y ago
        > If the data is not encrypted then all my data can be automatically taken by my spouse and kids, used in any way they want? How is it not scary? It's not "his" data any more, by definition. He's dead. Your capacity to control things in the world, in any way, stops once you are dead. That's what "dead" means! There are ways to create contracts with the living that will bind them to your (heh) will even after your death. They tend to be pretty complicated, unsurprisingly. But by default someone gets your stuff when you die, and they aren't you and don't necessarily have your opinions. If you don't like this, well, I guess plan on immortality?
mirimir 7y ago
There's lots of stuff there that she ought to have redacted. Totally personal stuff. Some about herself and her family. And it wouldn't have taken that long, even manually. It's just a bunch of backups and USB sticks.
- senectus1 7y ago
  she's actually done that deliberately. She made a statement about why she left her personal stuff in there. Brave woman. Good on her.

ajross 7y ago

Literally? No, it's her storage device and her data on it. This is a figurative argument about why she wants to release it.

datashow 7y ago
How do you know it's her property? I guess it was her father's property and now is in her possession. Does this automatically become her property? The device and the data? I guess we have a generation facing this new problem. I have only seem discussion about how services like Facebook should handle the data of deceased people. I didn't realize your kids (and spouse?) can just take your device and release it. This future seems scary to me.
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  While I certainly don't think all things in the digital space map perfectly to things in the analog space, there's literally centuries of precedence for descendants of someone who's deceased to make decisions about publicly releasing their journals, correspondence, unfinished manuscripts, and so on. Most of Emily Dickinson's poems were published after her death by her sister; author John Kennedy Toole's Pulitzer-prize winning novel A Confederacy of Dunces was discovered and submitted for publication by his mother after he committed suicide; Franz Kafka's The Trial was only published because Kafka's executor defied his dying wish to burn his unpublished works. tl;dr: I don't think the ethical questions here are affected by whether the deceased's writing takes the form of ink on paper or bits on digital storage.
  - datashow 7y ago
    It is true there are relevant precedents. I guess the difference is that in this digital age the scope of data is far greater than data on the paper. I don't know whether this truly matters.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    But some of this data may be subject to other ownership rights, nondisclosure agreements, etc.
    - mirimir 7y ago
      True. And that's probably why she put it online. Before it was too late.
- mirimir 7y ago
  Well, they can unless it's securely encrypted.
- smkellat 7y ago
  Raw possession does not always equal the legal right to dispose of something. To an extent this could be treated as a very limited scope data breach depending upon who your attorney is in the matter. Litigation outcomes should be interesting since the firm the strategist worked for is suing to regain legal custody of the materials.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Well, given the torrent, there's a decent chance that it's too late.
- awb 7y ago
  > How do you know it's her property? She was estranged from her father. After his death, her mother encouraged her to take the hard drives and USBs. Assuming that his wife was the legal owner after his death and it was in fact gifted her then it sounds legit.
  - datashow 7y ago
    This seems only change the subject of question from children to spouse. Does this change the nature of the question? I mean do your spouse automatically own your data when you die?
    - everdev 7y ago
      After death property is passed to the spouse, then kids, then closest surviving relatives, then the state unless instructions are provided otherwise in a will. I assume data is property. In this case the mother already had joint possession (through marriage) of her and her husband's property. While we refer to it as "his USBs" because he probably bought them and used them exclusively, when you're married they are legally owned jointly by you and your spouse. One exception would be if he did the work on behalf of a company and the company paid for the USBs. Then the company could probably sue to have their property returned. Or if he had a contract saying that he had to delete the data after the contract ended, that could probably be enforced as well.
    - astura 7y ago
      Absent a will saying otherwise all of your property is inherited by your next of kin upon your death. Your next of kin is your spouse if you have one. Your property includes your hard drives. Once someone is the owner of property they are usually free to do whatever they want with it, including giving it away.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    I wonder if her mother knew that there was interesting stuff on those devices. Or if she just didn't have any use for them.
- astura 7y ago
  Her mother inherited the property (hard drives) from her father when he died as his next of kin. Stephanie got back in contact with her mother and her mother gave her the hard drives after she found them in the house and asked if she could have them. Later on the drives were subpoenaed as part of a lawsuit and she made a copy of the contents and handed them over. This is detailed in the New Yorker article linked in TFA. It's not "scary," it's how property law has always worked. If you don't want the contents of your hard drive released by your next of kin then encrypt it.
  - datashow 7y ago
    If the data is not encrypted then all my data can be automatically taken by my spouse and kids, used in any way they want? How is it not scary? I don't see how this is easily comparable to my monetary properties.
    - astura 7y ago
      Your property includes your personal papers, letters, notes, manuscripts, diary, dirty underwear, pornographic magazines, any printed copies of your tax returns, doodles on a notebook, the contents of your wallet, etc, not just "monetary properties" (whatever that means). Once someone is the owner of property they are usually free to do whatever they want with it, including giving it away. This is how property law has worked for literally centuries. I don't think I'll be caring much about what my spouse is doing with the contents of my hard drive if I'm dead.
    - jshaqaw 7y ago
      I don’t mean to be glib here but if you are dead do you really care? If you can’t trust your spouse and kids after death then maybe you need to reconsider your relationship choices?
    - ajross 7y ago
      > If the data is not encrypted then all my data can be automatically taken by my spouse and kids, used in any way they want? How is it not scary? It's not "his" data any more, by definition. He's dead. Your capacity to control things in the world, in any way, stops once you are dead. That's what "dead" means! There are ways to create contracts with the living that will bind them to your (heh) will even after your death. They tend to be pretty complicated, unsurprisingly. But by default someone gets your stuff when you die, and they aren't you and don't necessarily have your opinions. If you don't like this, well, I guess plan on immortality?

mirimir 7y ago

There's lots of stuff there that she ought to have redacted. Totally personal stuff. Some about herself and her family. And it wouldn't have taken that long, even manually. It's just a bunch of backups and USB sticks.

senectus1 7y ago
she's actually done that deliberately. She made a statement about why she left her personal stuff in there. Brave woman. Good on her.