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You're taking actions in public, of course it's not private. Where do we get this idea that, not only do we have a right to privacy, but we have a right to pri
by diminoten 13y ago
You're taking actions in public, of course it's not private. Where do we get this idea that, not only do we have a right to privacy, but we have a right to privacy everywhere, all the time?
As for potential for abuse, guns can be abused too - that doesn't mean guns aren't allowed at all. Or if your country does ban guns, think of something else that might be abused but is allowed anyway.
Just because something could be abused doesn't mean that's a valid reason for not doing that thing.
- pfraze 13y agoThe implication of license plates changed from individual tracking (recording the plate during a crime) to mass tracking (recording all plates all the time). That's very different. Also, misusing a gun is different than misusing information.
- angersock 13y agoWhen one is in public, out of eyesight of any non-friendlies, one does indeed expect privacy. When one is moving across several disparate geographical locations, there is indeed an expectation of privacy. The simple "hurf durf you're in public ergo no privacy ever" argument is horseshit, to put it bluntly.
- res0nat0r 13y agoNot really. Where are these exceptions above you mention defined in the law?
- nitrogen 13y agoAs one example, you are not legally allowed to record a conversation to which you are not a party, and in some states, you need all participants' consent.
- res0nat0r 13y agoBut driving down the street and having your unique identifier on the back of your captured via camera isn't against the law.
- nitrogen 13y agoPerhaps not yet, but it should be illegal to collect and record license plate data en masse. Traffic monitoring for DOT optimization purposes can be done without uniquely identifying vehicles. Individual license plates can be compared against a wanted and stolen list without storing them. Witnesses of a crime can write down individual license plate numbers. But wide-scale recording of innocent individuals' historical movements via license plate numbers (and, for that matter, cell phone towers) ought to be illegal the same way wiretapping is illegal.
- diminoten 13y agoYou keep saying "should" and "should not" but you're not explaining why.
- diminoten 13y agoI have a right to record when I see you. Everyone has that right. If you're free to act, I'm free to record that act, assuming you've acted in public. Also, what's "horseshit" about "you don't have privacy when you act in public"? I'm not recording your conversations as you're in public, only what you do. Why is that horseshit?
- moutarde 13y ago> Why is that horseshit? Because historically (and also legally) the bounds between what is private and public have been defined by what was plausible at the time, not by what was hypothetically possible. We know live in a world were what used to a be a hypothetical dream (or science fiction novel) has now become the mundane. The law can either adapt (via judicial rulings), be changed by voters or become an absurd anachronism that's good for nothing but justifying invasive surveillance.
- diminoten 13y agoHistory and legality are not relevant morally. It's morally wrong to try and stop me from automatically recording the license plates of the people who drive by my house.
- maxerickson 13y agoBut you recording by your house isn't that interesting. It is more complicated when you start talking about whether you should sell derivations of those recordings or someone aggregating the recordings made by many people.
- diminoten 13y agoIt's not much more complicated. If I own properties throughout the city, and at each of those properties I record every license plate that drives by, I'm well within my rights to not only do that, but to aggregate that data and supply it to others if they ask. It's the exact same thing as CCTV, fundamentally. How can you construct an argument that prevents me from doing this without preventing many things we already are okay with?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- prodigal_erik 13y agoPrivacy is the difference between a city and a village. Cities are big enough that you don't know everyone you see and remember everything they do, and that lets eccentrics exist. Anonymity should be a sacrament.
- Houshalter 13y agoUntil recent technology, mass surveillance and tracking wasn't possible. It hasn't been an issue until recently. You can't just say that we've always been ok with a lack of privacy in public, because those laws and customs came about long before this was around. And yes abuse is a perfectly valid reason to ban something. Dangerous things that are allowed are because the amount of abuse is thought to be less than the amount of benefit. Is that true for surveillance? I honestly don't know.
- diminoten 13y agoAbuse? Yes. potential abuse is not, however.
- throwaway2048 13y agoso I don't imagine you would have any problem giving me a nuclear weapon. after all it's only a problem after I use it right?
- diminoten 13y agoYes, because recording license plates is even remotely comparable to a genocide machine.
- Houshalter 13y agoWhen talking about the subject of abuse of course it is. You yourself made an analogy to guns for crying out loud.
- diminoten 13y agoNo, it's not. A nuclear weapon is a special case. Guns are not, as it's already accepted that many people can own them despite their risk levels. "It could be abused" is not a valid reason not to do something, because everything is abused. It's human nature to abuse power. "The consequences of inevitable abuse are too severe to risk." is a better argument. What are the consequences of the abuse of this information? What, of these consequences, are possible only by the abuse of this information? What can go wrong when this system gets abused? Those are the relevant questions, and what we should be discussing, not quietly yelping, "my privacy" as we're each drug out of our beds into the night.