4 ms·

Perhaps it should in circumstances such as private medical information or any private information. We need digital privacy laws badly.

kube-system 3y ago
I think digital privacy would be much better handled by regular laws, not a constitutional amendment.
- ilovetux 3y ago
  I disagree. I think if it's not in the form of a constitutional amendment, then we will be constantly at risk of having it repealed or lessened or made irrelevant by superseding laws. I understand that we can not go around amending the constitution on a whim, but these topics are so young that we cannot foresee all the possible ramifications of any law that we try to pass but at the same time they are too important to not take action. A simple, easy-to-understand constitutional mandate such as "no law shall be passed that infringes on a citizens right to digital privacy" would be the ideal solution. After that, courts can be used to iron out the details and set precedence.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    I strongly disagree. The landscape of what "digital privacy" means is rapidly changing, and should be addressed by the national legislature in specific and clear text, not a patchwork of incomplete and conflicting opinions across different court jurisdictions. Clarity and specificity is very important if we want these laws to be effective.
    - ilovetux 3y ago
      > The landscape of what "digital privacy" means is rapidly changing How could congress even begin to keep pace with that rate of change? They certainly have not been keeping pace, and arguably going backwards in a number of areas (see FISA). The courts could take every issue, one-by-one, and clarify the reasons for any decisions. These decisions would happen in the light of day with an appeals process ready to handle disagreements about the letter and intent of the laws in question. > should be addressed by the national legislature in specific and clear text Congress has not shown an interest in keeping pace with technology, and would therefore be hard-pressed to write such "specific and clear" legislation. It would, therefore, fall to the lobbyists who have draft legislation ready to go with carve-outs custom made for the companies that sponsor them and which are not in the best interest of the average US citizen.
      - kube-system 3y ago
        Congress might be slow, but our patchwork of courts are even slower to come up with clear and comprehensive case law, and constitutional amendments can take hundreds of years to ratify. There is a solution for the problem you're highlighting: Congress passes a law which delegates authority to a regulatory agency. For instance, Congress doesn't need to be an expert on the latest airplanes in order to regulate them. They have assigned the FAA to do this.
  - creer 3y ago
    Neither privacy abuse nor cops lawlessness are "young". Really. But constitutional amendment would allow for a general principle. US laws really do not.
    - ilovetux 3y ago
      > Neither privacy abuse nor cops lawlessness are "young". Agreed, but I was trying to comment about digital privacy which is a fairly new issue. > constitutional amendment would allow for a general principle. US laws really do not. That's pretty much my point. We already have a similar amendment (the fourth amendment) already officially ratified, so this is not unprecedented. The problem with the fourth amendment is that it was written in a time when the government would need to physically go somewhere and take something, so there is no general principle allotted for digital privacy. At the same time, there _are_ laws governing ownership of data which made sense when it was the credit reporting agencies trading information for legitimate business purposes, but now we are in a very different landscape of what information can be stored, traded, transmitted, sold at a scale never before seen. These laws would need to be revised and would need the heft of a constitutional amendment to drive that process.
      - creer 3y ago
        That's fair - and anyway nowadays even the interpretation of the constitution has never been more open. A problem with laws is that there are so many to choose from and they are so narrow. See for example the video rental records law. An extremely narrow law that ignores the broader issue entirely (and which penalty is not even scaled for inflation). Same for credit reporting. Or for HIPAA. General principle is needed and we are not likely to get that from laws. And in the US that's not what laws are for. Generally. So the 4th amendment could be touched up to correct the fact that it was written when "online", "data", computers did not exist - and metadata was thin enough to not matter too much, and "privacy" was or was not the point and was unclear of a concept. Fixing the 4th would establish the principle that yes, now digital matters and privacy matters and must be included in the 4th. Otherwise we remain in the situation where it's easy to argue that it's not part of the 4th.

kube-system 3y ago

I think digital privacy would be much better handled by regular laws, not a constitutional amendment.

ilovetux 3y ago
I disagree. I think if it's not in the form of a constitutional amendment, then we will be constantly at risk of having it repealed or lessened or made irrelevant by superseding laws. I understand that we can not go around amending the constitution on a whim, but these topics are so young that we cannot foresee all the possible ramifications of any law that we try to pass but at the same time they are too important to not take action. A simple, easy-to-understand constitutional mandate such as "no law shall be passed that infringes on a citizens right to digital privacy" would be the ideal solution. After that, courts can be used to iron out the details and set precedence.
- kube-system 3y ago
  I strongly disagree. The landscape of what "digital privacy" means is rapidly changing, and should be addressed by the national legislature in specific and clear text, not a patchwork of incomplete and conflicting opinions across different court jurisdictions. Clarity and specificity is very important if we want these laws to be effective.
  - ilovetux 3y ago
    > The landscape of what "digital privacy" means is rapidly changing How could congress even begin to keep pace with that rate of change? They certainly have not been keeping pace, and arguably going backwards in a number of areas (see FISA). The courts could take every issue, one-by-one, and clarify the reasons for any decisions. These decisions would happen in the light of day with an appeals process ready to handle disagreements about the letter and intent of the laws in question. > should be addressed by the national legislature in specific and clear text Congress has not shown an interest in keeping pace with technology, and would therefore be hard-pressed to write such "specific and clear" legislation. It would, therefore, fall to the lobbyists who have draft legislation ready to go with carve-outs custom made for the companies that sponsor them and which are not in the best interest of the average US citizen.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      Congress might be slow, but our patchwork of courts are even slower to come up with clear and comprehensive case law, and constitutional amendments can take hundreds of years to ratify. There is a solution for the problem you're highlighting: Congress passes a law which delegates authority to a regulatory agency. For instance, Congress doesn't need to be an expert on the latest airplanes in order to regulate them. They have assigned the FAA to do this.
- creer 3y ago
  Neither privacy abuse nor cops lawlessness are "young". Really. But constitutional amendment would allow for a general principle. US laws really do not.
  - ilovetux 3y ago
    > Neither privacy abuse nor cops lawlessness are "young". Agreed, but I was trying to comment about digital privacy which is a fairly new issue. > constitutional amendment would allow for a general principle. US laws really do not. That's pretty much my point. We already have a similar amendment (the fourth amendment) already officially ratified, so this is not unprecedented. The problem with the fourth amendment is that it was written in a time when the government would need to physically go somewhere and take something, so there is no general principle allotted for digital privacy. At the same time, there _are_ laws governing ownership of data which made sense when it was the credit reporting agencies trading information for legitimate business purposes, but now we are in a very different landscape of what information can be stored, traded, transmitted, sold at a scale never before seen. These laws would need to be revised and would need the heft of a constitutional amendment to drive that process.
    - creer 3y ago
      That's fair - and anyway nowadays even the interpretation of the constitution has never been more open. A problem with laws is that there are so many to choose from and they are so narrow. See for example the video rental records law. An extremely narrow law that ignores the broader issue entirely (and which penalty is not even scaled for inflation). Same for credit reporting. Or for HIPAA. General principle is needed and we are not likely to get that from laws. And in the US that's not what laws are for. Generally. So the 4th amendment could be touched up to correct the fact that it was written when "online", "data", computers did not exist - and metadata was thin enough to not matter too much, and "privacy" was or was not the point and was unclear of a concept. Fixing the 4th would establish the principle that yes, now digital matters and privacy matters and must be included in the 4th. Otherwise we remain in the situation where it's easy to argue that it's not part of the 4th.