2 ms·

This simply isn't true, but I am not surprised that such a statement comes from shadowgovt

shadowgovt 3y ago
Can you clarify what aspect isn't true? It is the nature of law to take informal behaviors and codify them into "legal" and "illegal." At that point, individual people's beliefs on a topic no longer hold full authority over what they may choose freely to do; the law dictates what one must or must not do. (And that's just the behavioral aspect. The literal, legal aspect is that laws define terminology. From a legal standpoint, personal definitions are irrelevant when the law recognizes a definition in plain-letter).
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I think that what isn't true is the notion that any law is permanent. Laws can and do get changed or even removed over time.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    This is true. Laws are modified over time. ... the law rarely completely leaves the field once it has entered into regulating something previously unregulated. To do so is, generally, seen as returning an issue that needed the heavy hand of force back to the "chaos" of personal choices. So once the law replaces the murky, per-person-and-entity definition of "privacy" with a legal definition, that definition will stick. I expect, for example, any law latching what data companies may and may not keep to be very, very sticky. The details may change, but I find it highly unlikely that the government, having crafted such a law, will return to the condition of "On this, the law remains silent; it is up to the corporations what they collect and the people what they yield," which is (mostly, with some notable exceptions) the status quo. Can you think of examples where something was regulated and then the government retuned it to an unregulated state? Closest example I can think of was Prohibition; we added and removed an entire amendment, and even then, the current state is "a combination of state and federal authority regulates alcohol," stepped down from a ban.

Can you clarify what aspect isn't true? It is the nature of law to take informal behaviors and codify them into "legal" and "illegal." At that point, individual people's beliefs on a topic no longer hold full authority over what they may choose freely to do; the law dictates what one must or must not do. (And that's just the behavioral aspect. The literal, legal aspect is that laws define terminology. From a legal standpoint, personal definitions are irrelevant when the law recognizes a definition in plain-letter).

JohnFen 3y ago
I think that what isn't true is the notion that any law is permanent. Laws can and do get changed or even removed over time.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  This is true. Laws are modified over time. ... the law rarely completely leaves the field once it has entered into regulating something previously unregulated. To do so is, generally, seen as returning an issue that needed the heavy hand of force back to the "chaos" of personal choices. So once the law replaces the murky, per-person-and-entity definition of "privacy" with a legal definition, that definition will stick. I expect, for example, any law latching what data companies may and may not keep to be very, very sticky. The details may change, but I find it highly unlikely that the government, having crafted such a law, will return to the condition of "On this, the law remains silent; it is up to the corporations what they collect and the people what they yield," which is (mostly, with some notable exceptions) the status quo. Can you think of examples where something was regulated and then the government retuned it to an unregulated state? Closest example I can think of was Prohibition; we added and removed an entire amendment, and even then, the current state is "a combination of state and federal authority regulates alcohol," stepped down from a ban.