Comment by leptons
4 months ago
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public. That includes being recorded on video, or audio.
4 months ago
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public. That includes being recorded on video, or audio.
I disagree and think it is very reasonable and very possible. Don't put up cameras everywhere, don't put up listening devices everywhere, don't allow the government to buy this information from corporations. There should be a clear line drawn between me or you or a bar putting up a camera and the government gaining access to that data. It's not hard, it really isn't. Saying what you're saying it just trite and not looking at what is possible.
It's part of the same first amendment that gives you the right to free speech. Go look it up. There is no such thing as privacy in public, and if you feel like you have a right to privacy in public, then you need to read up on the first amendment. The only thing that requires permission is when the footage is used for commercial purposes, then you need permission to use it.
And FWIW, citizens have a right to get the footage the government records. You can get any camera footage from any government building, and even personal cellphones of government emplpoyees if they happen to film something with their personal cellphone while on the job.
The first amendment doesn’t mention recording, although I admit that an argument could be made regarding an implied right. But then why are wiretapping laws allowed? Hiding a recorder in an otherwise public meeting area can violate these laws in some states (notably Illinois and Oregon). Are these laws unconstitutional?
Besides, the first amendment does not give the government the right to record or to benefit from those recordings. Rather, it prevents the government from restricting speech acts of private citizens. Therefore there should be no conflict with the 1st if a hypothetical law prevents the government from recording or accessing private recordings, even if private recordings are considered protected speech.
I actually agree with you but I think two things can be true at once.
- There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public. Any individual with a camera can record you at any time. (Otherwise the entire genre of street photography basically wouldn't exist, and journalists could get arrested for documenting stories in the public interest.)
- We shouldn't have automated cameras recording all the time and feeding that information into a massive database where people's movements can be correlated and tracked across the country.
>massive database where people's movements can be correlated and tracked across the country.
Video (and audio) recording isn't even the best way to track someone, everyone has a cellphone these days, and turning them off doesn't always stop the tracking.
It's not recording in public that is the problem - that is a right - the separate problem is mining that data and making connections where there aren't any.
Some people say "both parties are the same", but I disagree. With the current administration, they are all-in on mass surveillance, they love Anduril and Palantir, and any attempt to protest their overreach will be met with force, and they are using these technologies to track protesters. The Democrats on the other hand will respond to protests, and we can push them in the right direction. I guess I'm trying to say, be careful who you vote for.
There's no reasonable expectation of pervasive video/audio capture, permanent recording, and complete AI analysis of all actions in public by all citizens forever, either. But that's the direction in which we're rapidly heading.
(Vouched for this comment, which was somehow already dead at 2 minutes old.)
Someone will always say "there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public", for whatever reason. So someone always has to respond to that, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know that not everyone agrees with that dismissive assertion.
>Someone will always say "there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public", for whatever reason.
It isn't "for whatever reason", it is part of the first amendment. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it hasn't been the law for a very long time.
2 replies →
You can hate it all you want, but it's the first amendment that makes it legal to record in public. I'm honestly glad we have the right to record in public, else the government would be able to hide some nefarious shit that the public has been able to record and dissemenate. If we couldn't record in public, then that would be extremely dystopian. Maybe using AI on recorded data is the real problem you're having, and I agree there should be laws against that - it is a separate issue than recording in public, but it's unlikely to ever be regulated with the current administration.