General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDo we have a right to expect any privacy in today's world?
In my opinion, we absolutely do.
Simply because technology has advanced to the degree that it has, with Internet, Facebook, email, cell phones, etc, does not in any way take away any person's right to privacy.
We did not give up our 2nd Amendment right to bear arms simply because guns became far more advanced than our founders ever imagined. Neither should we give up our 4th Amendment rights because technology has become advanced to the point that it makes it easy for the government or other individuals to spy on us or to invade our privacy.
It is not just our responsibility to protect our privacy. It is the responsibility of others not to invade our privacy. Just as you cannot put secret cameras in a hotel room to peep on customers, you cannot listen to others' phone calls or read their emails, or sell their information without their permission. Simply because technology allows you to do it does not make it legal or right.
It is absolutely wrong to say that you no longer have a right to privacy. You have just as much a right to privacy today as you did before the newest technology became available. Those that would use this technology for such purposes should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. They have no right to collect information that is personal to you. Technology does not change that one iota.
My hope is that someday we will see this tried before the Supreme Court.
leftstreet
(36,109 posts)spin
(17,493 posts)The War on Terror will be used as an excuse to implement Big Brother and to preserve power for the rich and privileged.
NaturalHigh
(12,778 posts)Do we, in reality, have privacy? Not at all, in my opinion.
kentuck
(111,106 posts)...does not make it legal or right. Our privacy is still protected by the Bill of Rights and the laws of our Constitution. No modern invention of technology changes that fact.
NaturalHigh
(12,778 posts)but it's been a long time since I felt that the government cared about our rights.
kentuck
(111,106 posts)We must understand that government uses technology for different reasons than do businesses or individuals. We have a responsibility to watch them at every step.
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)Seriously, all it would take is well written law to stop the sharing of personal information and then strong enforcement to include extremely heavy fines and jail time.
Privacy would become the norm overnight.
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)rail at the heavens than to actually push Congress to write such laws or to replace reps with those who would do the heavy lifting.
kentuck
(111,106 posts)Skidmore
(37,364 posts)Congress needs to be forced to do its job. First it needs to reclaim its war powers. Then it needs to address the Patriot Act and FISA provisions with sincerity of purpose and either repeal or revise them. I'd also like them to enshrine in law that a corporation is not a person.
kentuck
(111,106 posts)in order for something like that to happen? I agree with you 100%. (on this post)
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)Sitting around complaining because we have been shackled by the laws cranked out of that ineffectual body over the past decade and a half is not productive. Change Congress and change in the state houses too. I refuse to be dragged into Libertarian hell because I was too busy watching the sideshow while the tent was being loaded up on the train.
kentuck
(111,106 posts)Just go to the next Democratic Party meeting and bring up new blood in Congress and the necessity.
Jessy169
(602 posts)The cell phone call that you make and expect to remain private travels through public airspace on public airwaves. In order to keep that cell phone call absolutely private and insulated from interception by intrusive or snooping entities, we must enlist an army of technical experts to encrypt and decrypt that message and we must pay the technical experts a lot of extra money to keep that cell phone call private.
Same thing with internet usage. The data travels over private networks and is stored at least temporarily in corporate owned computers. To keep all that data private, we must enlist an army of expert computer software engineers who toil daily and at great cost to maintain some level of privacy and hack-proof technological capability -- I know, because I'm one of those software engineers.
Our "privacy" in the modern age, if it exists at all in reality, is only maintained at huge expense and by increasingly sophisticated technology that can never be guaranteed 100% against compromise.
Back in the constitutional framers' day, the right to privacy more or less just encompassed what went on inside your home. These days, guaranteeing the right to privacy is a technological challenge, not just a simple granting of an indelible human right.
Another way to look at it: Take the analogy of a nation's network of roads. We discover that heinous criminals are using that road network to transport lethal materials, to meet with other coherts in crime, to plan, to organize -- all with the intent of inflicting mass death and chaos. Should the police monitor the road network, maybe set up a few cameras, try to keep track of what is going on in order to prevent loss of life and property? Yeah, probably. But what about your right to privately travel from point A to point B without being monitored??!
It is way more complicated than JUST YOUR right to absolute privacy.
Just another point of view.
kentuck
(111,106 posts)...we end up where we are today.
"In order to keep that cell phone call absolutely private and insulated from interception by intrusive or snooping entities, we must enlist an army of technical experts to encrypt and decrypt that message and we must pay the technical experts a lot of extra money to keep that cell phone call private."
And that means "technical experts" invade our privacy more than anyone else, in the name of doing their jobs. They are the "snooping entities".
Jessy169
(602 posts)If humanity survives long enough, future historians may look back on this time and label it the "Damned if you do and Damned if you don't" era.
kentuck
(111,106 posts)Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)exist and are universal.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)I have to question how badly people actually want privacy when they don't seem to be willing to put up with the minimal hassle required to simply secure it for themselves.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)frazzled
(18,402 posts)At least not in the case of call logs or email logs being collected as metadata. Here's the explanation of the relevant court cases:
But Katz immediately gave rise to the question: What is a reasonable expectation of privacy? Suppose X has a conversation at a dinner party at which he reveals certain information about himself to the other guests. Thereafter, the government subpoenas one of the guests and compels her to testify about what X told her at the party. Is this a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment?
In a series of decisions in the years after Katz, the Supreme Court said no. As the Court observed in Katz, what a person knowingly exposes to the public is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. Thus, as a general matter, one has no reasonable expectation of privacy when one reveals information to third parties. Because those individuals are free to tell others what they were told, the speaker has no reasonable expectation that such conversations are private.
In United States v. Miller, decided in 1976, the Supreme Court considered the following question: Is it a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment for the government to subpoena information from a bank about a depositors financial transactions? Surely, ones financial transactions are private, right? The Court said no.
Because the depositor had voluntarily conveyed his financial information to the bank and its employees, who were complete strangers to the depositor, the depositor assumed the risk that the information would be conveyed by the bank to the government. Hence, the Court held, the depositor had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the information and there was therefore no search of the depositor when the government obtained the information from the bank.
Three years later, in Smith v. Maryland, the Court extended this logic to a pen register, a device that collects all the numbers called from a particular phone. Without probable cause or a warrant, the police, who suspected Smith of a crime, installed a pen register on Smiths calls at his telephone company. The Supreme Court held that this was not a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, because people know that the phone company keeps records of their phone calls, a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over the third parties, and Smith voluntarily assumed the risk that the company would reveal to police the numbers he dialed.
It is on the basis of this line of decisions that commentators have correctly stated that, under existing law, the governments program of collecting phone-call data from phone companies does not violate the Fourth Amendment.
This is not to say, of course, that the Supreme Court decisions are correct. In his dissenting opinion in Miller, for example, Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. objected that an individual should be held to retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in the financial records he discloses to his bank, because such disclosures are not entirely volitional in circumstances in which it is impossible to participate in the economic life of contemporary society without maintaining a bank account and because, in the course of his financial transactions with his bank, a depositor inevitably reveals many aspects of his personal affairs, opinions, habits and associations.
But even if Miller and Smith are correct in terms of the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, the mere fact that government can constitutionally exercise its authority in this manner does not mean that it should do so. That something is constitutionally permissible does not make it sound public policy.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/01/why-bush-violated-the-fourth-amendment-and-obama-has-not.html
Please note what the author (a law professor) says at the end. The Court may not have been right in these decisions; and even if it were, it doesn't necessarily mean that the government should proceed on this basis as a matter of policy, even if it has been deemed "constitutional."
treestar
(82,383 posts)In today's world, little goes on only in the house behind closed doors.
There are people out there who think they can't be photographed in public, or that their land ownership is private. Due to the fears of ID theft, public records have been restricted. Notice there's no outrage about that, just exotic stuff like NSA records.
Births, deaths, marriages (mostly) and divorces and probated estates are public acts. So is land ownership, corporate directorships and some other stuff.
kentuck
(111,106 posts)Our laws about privacy did not change simply because more technology was invented. Technology does not supersede our Constitutional rights. Even the cookie that is on this computer should be written into the law that it is illegal to store on your files without permission of the user. That's all I'm saying.
treestar
(82,383 posts)though the technology may also be expanding the public space, whereas people think it should be private. Facebook may be like a public square. You can't hear everyone outside, but you are out there talking too.
kentuck
(111,106 posts)But not all.
Facebook is the perfect example. You have agreed to share information with people you know or friends of people you know. You agree to that when you sign on. However, Facebook should have no right to sell your information - that is your private information. Neither should they be able to sell their customers names to other businesses. That is still your property. You have only agreed to share it with a limited number of people. No one else has a right to steal your property or your information.
Personally, I view privacy as a natural right. It's also a legal right, but the legal right is too limited.
I value my privacy very highly, and think that my legal right should be much, much broader.
kentuck
(111,106 posts)making illegal to retain any means of communication without the understood consent of the person whose privacy is being viewed or listened to. Just make it illegal. There is no 100% enforcement on very few laws. But that does not keep us from writing the law.
What are the odds?
gulliver
(13,186 posts)...as are all rights. It has to be that way, because rights affect other rights.
I think the government is representative of the people's will in determining the limits and of government knowledge about citizens. That's about the best we can hope for, and it's pretty good. Witness the yawn with which Snowden's few revelations have met. Snowden pointed out that the government had the privacy dial set on about six at the NSA, and most people just said, "Yeah, maybe six is ok. Wouldn't really want it to be seven or five."
Then the conversation turned to the curiosity of Snowden and Greenwald...the guy that immolated himself to say something relatively uninteresting and the guy who gave him the gas and the match.
kentuck
(111,106 posts)Planes forced to land in other countries to be searched for the culprit that spilled the beans on the government?
Other government leaders, especially EU and almost all of South America, have spoken out against our countries actions.
They don't see the "privacy dial" set at "six" - they see it set at about nine and a half...
At this time in the story line, I would agree that many folks have not yet given serious thought to the privacy issue and are not very concerned about it.
It is no trivial matter.
gulliver
(13,186 posts)The deal with Snowden is that he tried and seriously failed to push a serious matter using non-serious means and non-serious material. He misjudged the value of his information, the interest and knowledge levels of the American people, and the character of Glenn Greenwald.
Sure, the United States government is desperate to capture him. He may have more information that the American people would not want to see broadcast to the world. Snowden also deliberately challenged the country's laws. He picked the fight, and the government can't walk away from it or even give that appearance. They have to make the law real.
Government, including the NSA, is going to be a leading protector of privacy going forward. In the same way that police patrols keep people from peeping into your bedroom window, the government will be able to patrol for cyber criminals trying to steal identities and money. Relative to other players, the government makes extremely strict use of information and only under highly authorized, audited conditions. Moreover, government workers (mostly good people, let's not forget) don't wake up in the morning thinking they want to invade someone's privacy for fun or malice.
I don't think government workers, for example, are going to use phone call metadata to track down a weed dealer's buyers or even Republican Senator David Vitter's favorite prostitute. The American people don't want to know that stuff, because the American people all have dirt (or their kids do, etc.). I do think the government will use the metadata to go after terrorists and others who want to damage American interests. I do think the government will go after cyber criminals. And I think government workers will do that extremely carefully, because their jobs, reputations, and freedom are on the line.
Will a despotic dystopia occur where no one gets away with anything, and anyone can get anyone at any time? Not likely. I just don't see humans tolerating it. It's unrealistic. The new devices and media actually make 1984 and Brazil far less possible. They do give our worst enemies the ability to invade our privacy though. Ourselves.
Jessy169
(602 posts)kentuck
(111,106 posts)Do you work with the NSA??
I just think there are very good reasons for the level of monitoring that's going on.
I'm not inclined to believe that collecting meta-data or storing cell-phone calls for possible future reference constitutes a "violation" of someone's privacy. Some lawyers will no doubt disagree.
I don't buy into all the cynical and sinister motivations that some DU'ers are ascribing to the NSA and Obama admin -- or even to the "one-percenters" (in many cases).
I believe that there are serious threats capable of inflicting unacceptable damage lurking in the shadows waiting to strike, and potentially epic disasters are moving quickly toward us with climate change and dwindling resources.
The internet, cell phone and other related technologies are relatively new to the world -- they have improved our lives but also presented us with a multitude of problems. Worst of all, they have proven to be a VERY useful tool for our enemies. We have to shut that shit down. We just have to.
If you can't see that we're living in an increasingly dangerous world that might require the level of monitoring that the NSA is doing, fine. Somebody has to make the hard decisions and do what has to be done, regardless of the consequences. I believe Obama is doing that, and that the NSA and American military top priorities are protecting you and me, whether we like it or not.
I understand the cynicism and I understand the fear and the anger expressed by some DU'ers regarding Snowden and the issues he exposed. I just have a different point of view. Thank you for asking.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)It's just a matter of historical fact. Why would they change their stripes now?
Thanks.
BumRushDaShow
(129,239 posts)With fucking Scalia and Thomas there? And if a rethug gets in, guaranteed that it would tip 6-3.
The 4th Amendment was jettisoned a long time ago and the selective outrage here on DU (i.e., ignoring Stop and Frisk because it apparently hasn't happened to them) is just the tip of the iceberg.
The issue now is getting it back piece by piece, legal case by legal case, not by acting like teabaggers keyboard warring and whining about the EvilNaziSocialistCommieFascistObama.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)laws not make them.
UTUSN
(70,720 posts)AND on the local t.v. news every night - THERE ARE CAMERAS EVERYWHERE.
AND in London the entire metropolis is COVERED with cameras.
I'm DAILY astounded that robbers enter convenience stores thinking their PRIVACY is SECURE.*I* don't like walking downtown knowing I'm being WATCHED all the time. But how much should I CARE or BE OBLIVIOUS?!1
kentuck
(111,106 posts)With the cameras, you know you are being watched. With the emails and Internet, we don't know.
UTUSN
(70,720 posts)kentuck
(111,106 posts)Does not compute?
UTUSN
(70,720 posts)demunderground1985la
(3 posts)It's obvious now that neither party really has our best interests at heart.
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)I agree completely
kentuck
(111,106 posts)Hope to see more.
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)Gone today, back tomorrow.
In_The_Wind
(72,300 posts)[img][/img]
Zorra
(27,670 posts)outside my bedroom window.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Everybody gets sick, why build hospitals or train doctors?
Nobody is really free..why should we pursue freedom?
Everybody gets spied on by somebody, why should we desire privacy?
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
randome
(34,845 posts)Or S&G's unsupported claim that the NSA is 'watching our thoughts form as we type'.
Because the latter does not appear to be occurring.
And many people -myself included- do not consider phone metadata maintained in a black box to be invading our privacy. Especially when there is no evidence that the procedures in place to protect privacy are being subverted.
[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
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kentuck
(111,106 posts)It would even include the cookie on your computer that identifies you with the website you are visiting. That is your information and no one should hold it without your permission. That is my opinion of the 4th Amendment. It is about secrecy. With metadata, they can take you area code and find what state you may be in? The next 3 numbers would tell them your town. If you have put your cell number on line or other places, they can pick out your house with GPS. They can find out who you are talking with - your doctor, your psychiatrist, your mistress, whomever. Yes, there is a lot they can find out with metadata.
randome
(34,845 posts)If that was occurring, why didn't S&G find evidence of it?
And I don't recall anyone saying the NSA is collecting cookies, either.
[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]
elleng
(131,028 posts)but considering tech/cyber/terrorism etc., it becomes less and less reasonable to expect privacy to be maintained.
Response to elleng (Reply #51)
KoKo This message was self-deleted by its author.
elleng
(131,028 posts)Sorry, don't understand.
Response to elleng (Reply #54)
KoKo This message was self-deleted by its author.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Thx
Happy 4th!
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Ahhhh Families....Even the best...can get one in a tizzy. No excuse ...but, again, sorry about that.
elleng
(131,028 posts)Watching Music Man and avoiding such, but do wish I were with family.
randome
(34,845 posts)Happy 4th of July!
[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]
elleng
(131,028 posts)Happy 4th!
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Some is good..some is..well...get's one in a tizzy. Sometimes on wishes that it could be better to be reading a book alone...away from it all..
elleng
(131,028 posts)graham4anything
(11,464 posts)And purchase everything on a CC and have an EZ pass, and cellphone.
I don't much facebook as it is such a pain to navigate and I am not someone that can condense my thoughts into a few words,
so tweeting is out.
(I never was good on true/false, multiple choice, but ask me to write a 10,000 word essay, and that is the best.
I am more concerned with the voting rights acts being taken down,
and with the 2nd destroying ALL rights of anyone
including my right to safely assemble in a movie theatre, super market, bar or school since there are so many shootings.
I am scared of Zimmerman's out there shooting people and using the 2nd as an excuse.
This other stuff don't bother me.
BTW-we never had privacy
Anyone who had a phone like the one in Andy Griffith knew everyone was listening
Those who lived in an apartment building in NYC, know one could put their ears to the pipes of the radiators and hear three stories
above them if they cared.
Guess its regional.
Because in NYC everybody's business is everyone's business.
And Wednesdays always was Prince Spaghetti Days.
And people yelled out the window to tell everyone that.
Happy 4th.
Only 2 hours or so to the Macy's fireworks display.
kentuck
(111,106 posts)But everyone did not listen. They had more respect for people's privacy. Not everyone.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)its part of being a New Yorker.
Guess its an age thing.
People talked to each other back then. Face to face.
From the street to the windows above. People stuck their heads out
People sat on the stoops all summer long and yacked and yacked
It's like the TV show CHEERS.
everyone knew everybody's name
Paul Simon the singer mocked privacy in his song "America"
He said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
Careful she said, his bowtie is really a camera" (C) Paul Simon
If everything wasn't taped back then, what would Rosemary Woods have erased in those 18 1/2 minutes anyhow?
What would Ian Fleming have written about all those decades and decades ago.
After all, what was James Bond himself but a ruthless (but charming and handsome) spy?
kentuck
(111,106 posts)jrandom421
(1,005 posts)"You have no privacy on the Internet! Get over it!"
kentuck
(111,106 posts)Mr. Scott McNealy would be breaking the law. That the least we should do.
Wolf Frankula
(3,601 posts)was right. 'There is NO privacy in any society crowded enough to require ID cards. None.'
I've looked online and investigated what was held about me. Bob, you were right.
Wolf
(Who is a Democratic Socialist, not a Libertarian, Randite or Longian.)