{"items": [{"author": "Phillip", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/104910482960394?comment_id=104914082960034", "anchor": "fb-104914082960034", "service": "fb", "text": "Individuals have rights to privacy, societies have the right to publicy. Interestingly it is the right in the bill of rights, so far as the founders could go with technology of the time.", "timestamp": "1322932309"}, {"author": "Josh", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/118273920476267337216", "anchor": "gp-1322932425981", "service": "gp", "text": "I've been thinking (and occasionally saying) this for a long time. Publicy is a much better way to prevent abuse than privacy.", "timestamp": 1322932425}, {"author": "Amelia", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/104910482960394?comment_id=104936636291112", "anchor": "fb-104936636291112", "service": "fb", "text": "I sense a coming con fusion over the terms \"surveillance\" and \"sousveillance\". They are almost indistinguishable when pronounced, even when I'm looking for it...", "timestamp": "1322935113"}, {"author": "David German", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/111229345142780712481", "anchor": "gp-1322935321845", "service": "gp", "text": "I see the lexical use of publicy as a technological or cultural concept. As a legal concept, how does it differ from \nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech\n?", "timestamp": 1322935321}, {"author": "Mac", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/104910482960394?comment_id=104979189620190", "anchor": "fb-104979189620190", "service": "fb", "text": "The difference between any police force and the GESTAPO is the weight of public opinion.", "timestamp": "1322940356"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1322945635246", "service": "gp", "text": "@David German\n Legally it might be the same thing, but I'm not sure. Does prohibiting me from recording and broadcasting my interactions with the police violate my free speech rights?", "timestamp": 1322945635}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1322945900727", "service": "gp", "text": "@David German\n Alternately, I don't think cellphone jamming would be a free speech violation, but it would be depriving people of publicy rights: \nhttp://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/08/bart-incurs-internets-wrath-jamming-protesters-cell-phones/41235/", "timestamp": 1322945900}, {"author": "David German", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/111229345142780712481", "anchor": "gp-1322949104785", "service": "gp", "text": "\"Does prohibiting me from recording and broadcasting my interactions with the police violate my free speech rights?\"\n
\n
\nIn the decision you linked, the First Circuit held that it does. I would emphatically agree.", "timestamp": 1322949104}, {"author": "David German", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/111229345142780712481", "anchor": "gp-1322949832750", "service": "gp", "text": "\"Alternately, I don't think cellphone jamming would be a free speech violation...\"\n
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\nMurkier, but I think it is, at least in that context.", "timestamp": 1322949832}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1322953345530", "service": "gp", "text": "@David German\n Then it sounds like you're right.", "timestamp": 1322953345}, {"author": "David German", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/111229345142780712481", "anchor": "gp-1322955949429", "service": "gp", "text": "Well, okay. People have been worrying about free speech rights for a while.", "timestamp": 1322955949}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/106120852580068301475", "anchor": "gp-1322975977107", "service": "gp", "text": "One could (not you, David! maybe Jeff? probably not me...) claim a \"right to publicy\" that includes not only freedom of speech, but a right to the resources necessary to enact publicy.\n
\n
\nThere are plenty of people in the world who are unable to broadcast any information that I would be able to access, not because of legal regimes, but due to resource constraints.\n
\n
\nObviously the number of people like that is very, very rapidly diminishing -- which is good, even if publicy in the above sense isn't a right.", "timestamp": 1322975977}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/106120852580068301475", "anchor": "gp-1322976618942", "service": "gp", "text": "... and in any case, however you feel about rights, that resource constraint is a distinction between having freedom of speech and having the ability to enact publicy.\n
\n
\nProbably it's the only distinction though, and the fact that it's rapidly diminishing is probably why publicy and freedom of speech are different in my mind. A hundred years ago plenty of people lived in liberal states [with] a decent approximation to freedom of speech.\n
\n
\nBut hardly anyone had publicy the way we do now.", "timestamp": 1322976618}, {"author": "Josh", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/118273920476267337216", "anchor": "gp-1322977165797", "service": "gp", "text": "I'm not very interested in \"rights\" that require other people to give you things (like \"the resources needed to enact publicy\"), but I do like the idea of a \"right to publicy\" meaning a right to demand that certain other people in certain situations must \nnot\n have a right to privacy. The idea, for example, that Congress must allow everyone to watch while it's in session. Or, back to the police example, in fact an explicit right to observe and record on-duty police, ingrained to the point that an on-duty cop would never even think to ask you to stop recording them, because everyone knows that you have the right to observe and record public servants doing public service.", "timestamp": 1322977165}, {"author": "David German", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/111229345142780712481", "anchor": "gp-1322980785062", "service": "gp", "text": "@Josh\n I agree that's how it should be. I just don't see the need for a new right to cover broadcasting a log of your life, including video of police (or anyone else) you see. It's free speech: the same principles broadly and equally protect low-tech backyard chats and high-tech publicy streams.", "timestamp": 1322980785}, {"author": "Josh", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/118273920476267337216", "anchor": "gp-1322981387221", "service": "gp", "text": "Well, but there's a conflict here between your right to record and publish things you see, and other people's \"right to privacy\", which is often (these days anyway) interpreted as a right to control what information other people are allowed to publish about you. It is not in fact currently legal to record your conversations with other people, much less broadcast them, suggesting that it's not a clear-cut free speech case. I think it should be; but I think that it would be valuable to explicitly clarify that in certain public situations, other people's right to observe/record/publish trumps your right to control what people can observe/record/publish about you.", "timestamp": 1322981387}, {"author": "David German", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/111229345142780712481", "anchor": "gp-1322981715753", "service": "gp", "text": "@David Chudzicki\n Certainly, publicy != freedom of speech. As far as I know, \n@Jeff Kaufman\n hasn't formalized a definition of publicy. In my head, it's something like this.\n
\n
\nThe practice of sharing extensive information about one's daily life with anyone who cares to access it, typically using the Internet.", "timestamp": 1322981715}, {"author": "David German", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/111229345142780712481", "anchor": "gp-1322982107894", "service": "gp", "text": "@Josh\n \"It is not in fact currently legal to record your conversations with other people, much less broadcast them...\"\n
\n
\nI believe this is generally false in the USA, with details that vary somewhat from state to state.\n
\n
\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography_and_the_law#Public_property\n
\n
\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#United_States", "timestamp": 1322982107}, {"author": "Josh", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/118273920476267337216", "anchor": "gp-1322982669966", "service": "gp", "text": "As it turns out, I've only lived in CA, PA, and MA since I was ten years old, so I hadn't realized this was a state-specific thing. :^)\n
\n
\nThat second Wikipedia page is specifically about telephones -- are in-person conversations covered too? \nhttp://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/recording-conversations.aspx\n thinks that it's basically the same laws. I'm not sure about situations where there are more than two parties -- in particular, what if you're standing around at a conference, where two people are talking, and don't actually say a word the entire time, but want to record the conversation? (For completely non-sinister reasons, like they're talking about something you're interested in, and want to look up later.) Does it matter if you're \"in the conversation\" from their point of view, i.e. you're facing them and they think you're listening, vs if you're standing near them and they don't know that you're paying attention? I feel like a lot of people in that situation would say that they don't mind if you overhear them (if they did, they'd go find somewhere private to talk), but that they don't think it's ok for an eavesdropper to record them and publish the recording.\n
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\nThe whole \"reasonable expectation of privacy\" thing seems very fuzzy to me, and simply saying \"if you can hear (or see) it, you can record it and publish it\" -- aside from the original point of helping to curb abuse from authorities -- seems pleasantly simple.", "timestamp": 1322982669}, {"author": "David German", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/111229345142780712481", "anchor": "gp-1322983244742", "service": "gp", "text": "My understanding is that the principles outlined in the first link apply to in-person video and audio recording as well as photography, and are more consistent across states than the telephone principles. We're near the limits of my knowledge on the subject, though.", "timestamp": 1322983244}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1323008753606", "service": "gp", "text": "It does sound to me that if I wanted to set up a device recording all the audio I hear, that would be illegal in this state (MA). Though it might depend on whether it was clear to everyone around me all the time that they were being recorded.", "timestamp": 1323008753}, {"author": "Josh", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/118273920476267337216", "anchor": "gp-1323009089964", "service": "gp", "text": "Conversely, if you never use the audio for anything other than your own reference, and no one ever even finds out that you have it, there's not much they can do about it in practical terms. In that sense, it only becomes a problem if they \nare\n aware of it...", "timestamp": 1323009089}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1323009681562", "service": "gp", "text": "Looking more: \"the court found no probable cause supporting the wiretap charge, because the law requires a secret recording and the officers admitted that Glik had used his cell phone openly and in plain view to obtain the video and audio recording.\"\n
\n
\n(From the summary of earlier cases in \nhttp://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/10-1764P-01A.pdf\n)", "timestamp": 1323009681}]}