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0 pointsTeMPOraL9y ago0 comments

Maybe nitpicking, but:

> a fight for a fundamental right to privacy

Many don't consider this to be a fundamental right.

> A tech that takes 100 years to develop can be made illegal in a day.

As the recorded history goes, I think it was always the other way around - a new technological development suddenly invalidating a set of laws, and lawmakers playing catch-up with its use.

I wish governments of the world got their collective shit together so we could have sane privacy laws, but as it is now, technology is an important leverage to push the policymakers in the right direction. Maybe you can't focus 100% on it, but it would be foolish to just ignore it. It's the single most powerful tool we have here.

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jaredklewis9y ago

I partially agree with your points, but I still insist the policy fight is more pressing, because the tech is only possible to use with the right policy.

If the US and Europe change to be like China, all that tech is worthless because the spooks can come knock down your door if they suspect you're "hiding something."

youdontknowtho8y ago

This really can't be overstated.

"Engineering around" the failures of democracy in the West won't work. We need to fix the issues with our democracies and change the policies.

shwouchk8y ago

> Many don't consider this to be a fundamental right.

Is that why everyone agrees that the constitution protects this right in the physical domain?

TeMPOraLOP8y ago

In physical world we differentiate between public and private spaces, with different expectations of privacy in each of them. There's a debate to be had about appropriate demarkations on the Internet.

erelde8y ago

Where I walk and what I do on the street is private even though it's in a public space (exceptions apply). Similarly what I do and where I go on the internet is private even though it is a public space (exceptions apply).

If someone follows me in the street for hours (days, weeks, life) and note everything that I do, I'd be right to call that a violation of my privacy ?

dredmorbius8y ago

And many do. The right is enshrined in several of the amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

There is Warren and Brandeis, "The Right to Privacy", 1890, which specifically addresses the publication of private aspects of citizens' (and residents') lives:

* Recent inventions and business methods call attention to the next step which must be taken for the protection of the person, and for securing to the individual what Judge Cooley calls the right "to be let alone" [10] Instantaneous photographs and newspaper enterprise have invaded the sacred precincts of private and domestic life; and numerous mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that "what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from the house-tops." For years there has been a feeling that the law must afford some remedy for the unauthorized circulation of portraits of private persons;[11] and the evil of invasion of privacy by the newspapers, long keenly felt, has been but recently discussed by an able writer.[12] The alleged facts of a somewhat notorious case brought before an inferior tribunal in New York a few months ago,[13] directly involved the consideration of the right of circulating portraits; and the question whether our law will recognize and protect the right to privacy in this and in other respects must soon come before our courts for consideration.*

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_to_Privacy_(articl...

https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/priv...

The only possibly validity to your nit is that it might be applied to any subject of human discernment: some will differ.

Those differences are quite frequently exceedingly poorly founded.

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