Eric: one of the difficulties of the free society approach, to which I agree btw, is that we migrate between countries so easily nowadays, so that privacy is global, not national. Certainly laws cannot be easily crafted to handle national differences.
On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 9:40 PM, Eric Charles <e...@psu.edu> wrote: > Nick, > I have struggled with parts of this quite a bit. As you know, I am a > somewhat-crazy Libertarian, and so get stuck in conversations like this on > a fairly regular basis. In particular, I reject the idea that privacy is > primarily about protecting people from shame or guilt. I believe that > privacy (of a certain sort) is a basic right that is essential to a free > society. Alas, it is difficult to explain why, as whenever I assert the > right to not have certain information public, whomever is on the other side > of the argument immediately tries to back me into a corner of being ashamed > of whatever it is I want to keep private. There are a few things in my life > I am indeed ashamed of, but very few, and I would probably tell most of > them to anyone who asked. On the other hand, there are many things that I > would like to keep private, and would probably not tell anyone who asked. > How to explain the difference? > > The best I can say, I think, is that I see the right to (mostly) privacy > as inextricably linked to the right to (mostly) self-determination. Whether > people should have the latter right is certainly up for debate, but I think > it has been a cornerstone of US culture through most of US history. At the > least, it has been a cornerstone of our social myth structure (for sure if > you were a white male, off and on for other groups). The idea that one > could get a "fresh start" in America motivated many an immigrant... and *part > *of getting a fresh start was people not knowing everything about you > that those you were leaving knew. The mythic Old West was also largely > based on such a principle. > > The ability to control (to some extent) what people know about you is > often key to achieving goals (or at least it seems that way). Imagine for > example, the otherwise charismatic man with "a face made for radio." He > might or might not be ashamed of his looks, but either way he has an > interest in keeping his face (mostly) private until his career is > sufficiently established. To put it in a more Victorian tone: There are > certain things, we need not say which, that I am not ashamed of, and yet it > would be inconvenient if they came out. Of those things we shan't speak, > and it should be my prerogative to protect them as I see fit against the > inquiries of others. > > ---------- > > To complicate your inquiry, one of the big legal issues in the fight you > see brewing is this: Most of the new slush of public information you are > concerned with is put out their *voluntarily*. The GPS in your phone > turns on and off (and if not, you could get a different phone). Your posts, > emails, blog entries, online photos, etc. are all being made public > intentionally. Those software and website user agreements few ever reads > often include consents to use your data in various ways, including making > parts public. > > The old ideas of stalking, I think, mostly involved the accumulation of > data against the will of the "victim", and could potentially include the > gathering of both private and technically public information (i.e., court > records). I don't know how you could make a legal case against someone who > only knew things about you that you intentionally threw out into the world > for the purpose of people knowing it. If you wander around town everyday > without clothes on, it would be hard to accuse someone of being a "peeping > Tom" just because they saw you naked. > > Eric > > > -------- > Eric Charles > Assistant Professor of Psychology > Penn State, Altoona > > ------------------------------ > *From: *"Nicholas Thompson" <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> > *To: *"The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" < > friam@redfish.com> > *Sent: *Tuesday, January 15, 2013 2:45:52 PM > *Subject: *[FRIAM] Privacy vs Open Public Data > > > Dear all, > > > > We had a discussion last Friday at Friam that I would like to see > continued here. Many of us had seen a recent talk in which somebody was > using satellite imagery to track an individual through his day. The > resolution of such imagery is now down to 20 cm, and that is before > processing. We stipulated (not sure it's true in NM) that if I were to > follow one of you around for week, never intruding into your private space, > but tagging along after you everywhere you went and patiently recording > your every public act, that I could eventually be thrown in jail for > stalking. We tried to decide what the law should say about assembling > public data to create a record of the moment by moment activities of an > individual. We suspected that nothing in law would forbid that kind of > surveillance, but it made some of us uneasy. So much of what we take to be > our private lives, is, after all, just a way of organizing public data. > > > > We then wondered what justified any kind of privacy law. If everybody were > honest, the cameras would reveal nothing that everybody would not be happy > to have known? Were not privacy concerns proof of guilt? No, we concluded: > they might be proof of SHAME, but shame and guilt are not the same, and the > law, *per se*, is not in the business of punishing SHAME. > > > > I thought our discussion was interesting for its combination of > technological sophistication and legal naiveté. (In short, we needed a > lawyer) In the end I concluded that, as more and more public data is put > on line and more and more sophisticated data mining techniques are > deployed, there will come a time when a category of cyber-stalking might > have to be identified which involves using *public* data to track and > aggregate in detail the movements of a particular individual. Do we have > an opinion on this? > > > > We will now be at St. Johns for the foreseeable future. > > > > > > Nick > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > > Clark University > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > http://www.cusf.org > > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
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