2010/4/10 Hellekin O. Wolf <[email protected]> > On Wed, Apr 07, 2010 at 10:19:57AM +0200, Matija Šuklje wrote: > > > > I'm all for free speech, but the thing is that legally as well as IRL you > > get a clash of privacy vs. free speech. To put it in legalspeek: "One's > > right extends only as far as another's begins." > > > *** Putting privacy and free speech in the same pot sounds to me like > a counter-revolutionary attack on both privacy and free speech. It > seems to say: you cannot have privacy if you have free speech, and you > cannot have free speech if you have privacy. I wonder when this > dichotomy appeared, but I relate it to the general trends in warfare > speech that says "Either you're with us, or against us" and the > marketing-fascist trend of pushing transparency at all price, "because > you don't have anything to hide." > > Free speech in these terms, has become an advertisement for "I can say > anything I want, especially gossip that lifts the dirty veil of > secrecy you maintain about your private life". The panopticon of > paparazzi. > > Privacy is these terms, has become the mark of someone ("un-american") > who doesn't trust the system, and hides from it things that are > consequently suspicious. > > Proponents of PRIVACY VS. FREE SPEECH mix all concepts and flatten > them so as to obtain a thin film of nonsense that can cover and choke > anything below it. >
This is a very good point. I think eben moglen covers a lot of this in his, at time fiery, debate with Tim O'Reilly http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/08/my-tonguelashing-from-eben-mog.html Moglen suggests that, at times there is are conflict of rights, which leads to a higher order thinking and level of discussion. > > When TRANSPARENCY is used to champion democratic ideas, we're not > talking about TOTAL TRANSPARENCY (that would be fascism), but about > PUBLIC TRANSPARENCY: democratic institutions and representatives > activity *should* be transparent, as in: publicly accountable. That > works in Sweden, where public finances are indeed public, and people > can check where their tax money go. That is entirely different from > Big-Brother-ing the neighboorhood with a dense network of spy cameras. > > One should remember that the original version of the Panopticon was a > conceptual prison, where prisoners would believe they are under > constant surveillance, hence self-discipline out of fear of > punishment. I don't know how you feel about it, but since the 1970s > and Foucault, this not only sounds childish and retrograde, but a very > dangerous and fascist way of looking at society. > > When designing social software, and thinking about these issues, one > has to be careful with terms and concepts. > > == > hk > > >
