edj wrote: <snip> > The US Constitution limits only the government, not private parties. > Thus, while the US government would need a warrant to recover my "papers > and effects", my doctor could disseminate my records to whomever he > wished, absent statutory prohibition. The Bush administration wishes to > amend the statute. No constitutional prohibition, I'm afraid. > > --
How so? I can't simply sieze documents belonging to you, anymore than a doctor, attorney, private company or anyone else can sieze anything that's considered a private record. Explicit permission has to be given for such, such as a release consent, or warrant, regardless of the pursuer's belonging to a government or private sector. Items of public record that are available freely are not considered to be *private* as are personal records, papers, and other things. As an employee of the Supreme Court of New Mexico, though many records are available on a public case lookup, there's specific prohibitions against me disseminating those elsewhere, even though they're public documents and I'm a private individual, let alone disseminating private information. Just because an individual or company doesn't fall under the category of a government entity doesn't negate the right of an individual to be protected from the dissemination of private information. Kevin Mitnick spent a *long* time in prison for taking something he had no permission or granted right to take (source code from Nokia and Sun) and was considered a private record or effect and had no statutory prohibition, e.g. no law stating that Nokia or Sun couldn't distribute their source code without permission. Without the amendment's language there's no defining line between theft and borrowing, legal and illegal, private and public. The application of it provides equal protection, regardless of the pursuer, government or private sector, though it's been distorted sometimes to fit the situation as necessary. -- Andrew Mathews ------------------------------------------------------------ 11:55am up 6 days, 5 min, 5 users, load average: 1.06, 1.03, 1.00 ------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list - http://linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Archives,and Digests are located at the above URL.
