Re: Are Flock cameras next? Supreme Court rules against police using sprawling cell phone location data

Scott Hoge <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 2026-07-14, D  Ray <d@ray> wrote:
>> 
>> Scott Hoge <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 2026-07-14, Schlomo Goldberg
>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> We seal envelopes not because the letter contains a
>>>> conspiracy, but because the contents belong exclusively to
>>>> the sender and the receiver.
>>> 
>>> That argument appears to be question-begging. Why do we seal
>>> the envelope? For one, to keep the paper from falling out. But
>>> you say, additionally, that it's because of /exclusive
>>> ownership/, not merely of /physical/ property (the letter
>>> itself) but of /intellectual/ property (what's /written in/
>>> the letter).
>>> 
>>> The claim of /intellectual/ property just reduces again to the
>>> claim of a right to privacy -- thereby begging the question of
>>> why such a right to privacy exists.
>> 
>> Because none of your business, that’s why.
> 
> Points for effort.
> 
>>> If someone opened the letter, read the contents, put it back
>>> in, and sealed it, the harm wouldn't so much be in the
>>> intercipient's knowledge of the letter as it would be in the
>>> tattered, crumpled envelope that had to be resealed, which
>>> would give the letter an ugly appearance.
>>> 
>>>> The "nothing to hide" argument is pure corporate/state
>>>> propaganda. Privacy isn't about hiding a crime; it's about
>>>> deciding who gets access to your life. It's a boundary of
>>>> power, not a shield of guilt.
>>> 
>>> "Access to one's life," "power," and "guilt" are, at best,
>>> incomplete concepts. The concept of /guilt/, additionally, has
>>> signification only within a system of /retributive/ justice
>>> (where the "guilty man" is stomped on by a bigger, more
>>> attractive male for the amusement of the public) and may
>>> disappear, and disappear entirely, in a system of
>>> /restorative/ justice (where instead we just solve the
>>> problem).
>>> 
>>> You say, "Privacy isn't about hiding a crime." Here, "about"
>>> is an obfuscating term. Privacy /enables/ hiding a crime. It
>>> also /disables/ the obtainment of information that is
>>> potentially useful in the socioeconomic problem-solving
>>> process (such as who starves from lack of food, where, and
>>> why).
>> 
>> Pretty sure there is way to find out who starves from lack of
>> food and where without sticking a camera in everyone’s butt.
> 
> A conceptual distinction should be made between two senses of
> "taking away the right to privacy":
> 
> 1. Removing the /universal/ right to privacy, or
> 2. Implementing a correspondingly /universal/ right to know.
> 
> To clarify, the sense I intend is (1). A correspondingly
> /universal/ right to know would be a straw man.
> 
> Such a universal right to know -- or, as you rhetorically
> describe it, "sticking a camera in everyone's butt" -- does not
> necessarily inhere in an ideal society, particularly if it
> /limits physical freedom/, which I already guarded against in my
> original claim. Literally sticking a camera in everyone's butt
> would limit the physical freedom to walk with correct, upright
> posture.

Are you AI?

>>> "Power," and the boundary thereof, inheres not only in the
>>> possessor of private information, but in those who have the
>>> power to know. Removing the right to privacy grants you the
>>> power to know who "accessed your life" in his commission of a
>>> crime against you.
>> 
>> No, people already should have power to know “who accessed
>> their life”. If it’s private citizen, then he’s committing a
>> crime, and should be prosecuted by a state. If it’s not private
>> citizen, then there nothing “private” about their actions, thus
>> there is no expectations of “privacy”.  That’s why things like
>> FOIA requests exist.
> 
> The problem of privacy isn't limited to citizens who "commit
> crimes." It extends to anyone /collectively involved/ in
> potential socioeconomic misfortune, including the "lazy liberals"
> that conservatives scream about, liberals who are /supposedly/
> lazy, but may in fact have reasons justifying their actions.

And you’re going with that exactly where?

>>> That doesn't mean we should just stick a camera in everyone's
>>> bathrooms on day one. It just means that in an /ideal/
>>> society, we would have nothing to fear and nothing to hide. No
>>> discovered misfortune or act would be "humiliating" or
>>> "embarrassing"; we would just candidly know about each other.
>> 
>> No, in “ideal society” people wouldn’t feel the need to “know
>> about each other” because they would be living among other
>> people just like themselves.
> 
> What you're describing is /perfect conformity/. Which, if a poor
> little boy in a wheelchair were born, would require tossing him
> into the fire.

No, that’s a lie. I guess I also should mention that boy’s wheelchair
during pregnancy would limit the physical freedom of mother to walk with
correct, upright posture.

“Perfect conformity” is what *you* call “ideal society” - with glass
houses, where there is “nothing to fear and nothing to hide”.