fair enough. the violence seems like it was unwarranted. i don't think anyone is suggesting that a person having a camera entitles them to physically assault that person, either.

the guy should have either turned the camera off or left. he chose to have a camera permanently attached to himself, he should accept that there will be drawbacks inherent to that choice.

Hopefully future builds will include something like a lens cover.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)


-k

They will but you have to be online for it to close. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Wow. This is one hell of a debate over something I saw a while ago.

The guy in the article isn't really a cyborg. There's no real man/machine interface, he's just chosen to have the thing semi-permanently affixed to his face. Still, he's trying to test the waters, pave the way, and that's interesting.

As regards the folks who physically assaulted him: they should all be criminally charged for violence bestowed upon him. To quote the chief court justice, "My right to swing my fist ends where another man's nose begins," and they went considerably past the tip of the nose. Also for criminal destruction of property, for destroying a medical notice he kept upon his person for valid reasons (to inform asinine hamhanded assjacks like them that the glasses were, in fact, physically attached to his head,) and criminal damage to property (the damage they inflicted on his butt-ugly glasses rig.)

As far as I'm concerned about the doc wearing them, though, he's a bit of an assjack (if someone connected to the store tells you to take those and leave, you should, even if you don't have a legal obligation to do so,) but he really didn't do anything wrong.

As regards a person's expectation of privacy in public, I have to say that Hermit is espousing a position that I, frankly, find ridiculous and overbearing. You have the right to optical privacy inside of a building or other space which you have control over, inasmuch as you care to physically enforce that right. To my way of mind, if a person in public not engaged in any criminal activity can walk by and observe something with their own, organic eyeballs, then you have no right to complain if it gets recorded for all time by mishap or chance encounter. So if you happen to be doing stretches in the nude in front of an unshielded bay window at ground level, someone could walk by and observe it with their eyes, and now they have seen you in the nude and you have no right to complain. If they happened to be filming something unrelated (say, their friend they were walking beside,) and the camera focused on you, or they were wearing google glasses or had high-rating cybereyes installed, too bad. Draw the shades in the future.

Now, on the other hand, what they do with that picture may be criminal. Posting a picture of you nude to the internet, would and probably should remain a criminal infraction of some nature. Posting a picture of you eating at a restaurant, not so much; the difference being the content of the image. Actually stalking you with intent to surveil you for whatever reasons would remain illegal, and should, but it is the stalking itself which should be illegal, not the equipment with which they do so. Sticking a camera over the top or under the bottom of a bathroom stall should also remain extremely illegal, as should attempting to film you in any space over which you expect to have some measure of control or privacy, such as a hotel room or the changing rooms in a clothing store. Going out of your way to film someone who has asked you to stop should remain criminal, but in terms of public spaces (meaning basically anywhere that isn't your home, hotel room, or other space one reasonably expects privacy,) the onus should be on the person who does not wish to film to be moved, not on the person doing the filming to cease filming whatever it was that the camera-shy person inadvertently stumbled into frame.

So if you're at a museum and someone is recording their time at the museum (or at a restaurant or whatever,) and you don't like that, the onus should be on you to either depart or take care to stay out of frame, not to harass and compel the person who is creating permanent memories to cease.


As far as Shadowrun goes... Nobody has any expectation of privacy anymore. Camera drones the size of a bug. Cybereyes in better than half the skulls you see. You have no expectation of privacy, if you succeed in having any then you have done so at considerable effort and congratulations are in order, much like today one has no expectation of wealth and if they succeed in having it.

I always practise my exorcisms fully clothed.


Actually, he would be legally obliged to do to, or could be removed with appropriate force if necessary, under French law.

For the other stuff, I'm afraid you missed replies to the points you raise there further up. Well, one clarification:


If someone is filming a panoramic view, he has the perfect right to. If I pass by a tourist filming, even close by enough that it arguably WOULD infringe on my self-copyright and privacy, I probably wouldn't (also, I usually take care to not step into tourists' way because that is just damn impolite), but if someone actively films or photographs me, we have a problem, and I will ask the photos to be deleted unless I was asked and granted permission first. Like it or not, Americans, this is the law here.

Something something glass houses, something something.

It's spelled "Practice," by the way. And I realized I horribly mangled the spelling and corrected it, thank you.



I don't give a good goddamn about French law, since I used that post to explicitly point out the ways in which I feel the French laws on the matter are ridiculous, and am not, in fact, French, nor subject to French laws on the matter.



Yes, because we really care enough to photograph you. I'm not sure what that implicit assumption implies about your way of thinking. Perhaps you're excessively attractive and feel self-conscious about it.

I thought I made it clear enough in my post that I didn't give a damn about the laws of whatever country you hold to in the last post, and that what I was espousing was my general belief on the topic. Allow me to clarify.

I, ShadowDragon8685, do not give so much as half a damn about the laws of the land to which any other poster here, specifically including you, Hermit, but not excluding others, are beholden, inasmuch as it applies to my previous post and only to my previous post's stated views on the topic of the expectations of privacy (and in those places where I feel you have no reasonable expectation of privacy and it is my belief that any expectation of having privacy in such places is, in fact, unreasonable,) because my previous post was espousing my views about the way the matter should be, and I do not subscribe to any other. I would obey the laws of such a land, were I to find myself in such a land, but only under duress of the fear having those laws enforced against me, and in nothing but complete and utter contempt for the overly-paranoid, harsh manner in which they are written.

It is my belief that if you are willing to place yourself in a place in which you may be seen by the eyeballs of other human beings going about their business, you forfeit any right to object if that same sight is recorded on digital or other media. If you find yourself in a place where it would be unacceptable for another human being to behold you with their naked eyeballs (such as the interior of your own home, inasmuch as you take care to prevent yourself from being seen from the sidewalk outside, or in a publicly-accessible restroom stall or clothier's changing room,) then you have a right to object to being photographed, but not because your image has been recorded (though that is an aggravating factor,) but because you have been spied upon in a place where you have a reasonable expectation of being free from casual surveillance.

If you find someone's gaze or photography in a public place unacceptable, the onus is on you to move. If they proceed to tail you, then they have crossed the line into stalking, and you should have the right to have them detained by law enforcement, their images deleted, etcetera.

Actually her spelling is also correct. In the UK and many other English speaking regions (including but not limited to Canada and Australia) “practice” is the noun, “practise” the verb. In the states we tend to use practice for both noun and verb.

Once again showing how the English language overall is just way too confusing some days. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Course it still beats ancient Egyptian I imagine.

Imagine arguing over *symbol of crane with one leg raised* vs. *cat headed women holding an urn*

Doesn't someone have it in their sig about how English is the language that has been known to chase other languages down dark alleyways to bludgeon them and rifle their vocabulary? Hrm.

Still, as I said, I realized my error and corrected it. Before she replied, no less.

Bah, the only way to do it properly is Skyclad! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Hrm. I wonder if there's a magical tradition that has a geasa of "you must be buck nekked to cast magic."

Can a geasa only apply to ritual spellcasting?

You didn't realise I usually use British English spelling, though. Also I can be inconsistent there, I'll give you that.


The incident in the article happened in France, where American laws are not applicable. Nobody is talking about you here, except yourself.


Some form of Tantrism probably.

The Secret Society of Sorority Sorceress' probably (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)


Normally it has to apply to all your magics or you would have people loading up geasa for one particular spellcasting without really limiting their other magics.

That said, nothing says you couldn't take a Limited spell option for the ritual spell in question and use two tasselled pasties for the fetishes to be worn while otherwise nekkid. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

What happens in Las Magus stays in Las Magus. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

"Realize." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)



How many times do I have to iterate and re-iterate exactly how little of a fuck I give about the laws of the land of France? If I gave less fucks, I would be giving negative fucks, which would mean I would be getting fucks on the topic.

I do not care about the laws of France on this topic because I consider them to be as wrongheaded and stupid as laws that state that women are forbidden from speaking with men or showing their faces in public. I think that they are as extreme, and extremely wrong-headed, as wrong-headed as if it were perfectly legal to install spycams in public toilets. Like, literally inside the toilet.

I do not care what the laws of France have to say on the topic, nor the laws of Germany, or the United Kingdom, or those of Italy, Greece, Canada, the United States, the Holy See, Australia, China, Japan, or freaking Zimbabwe. That the generally-espoused laws of the United States on the topic happen to line up more or less with my views on the topic is a pleasant coincidence for me. I am not saying that the laws of the United States should be enforced elsewhere, I am saying that the views I hold on the topic, which coincidentally are shared by the United States, are the only reasonable views to hold on the topic, and every sane country in the world ought to implement them because they came to the conclusion that if you're anywhere someone who is not going out of their way to surveilate you can see you with their eyeballs, you have no right to complain that they see you with a lens.

Because obviously everyone who doesn't agree with you has to be American (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

Actually they already do, it's called Reality Shows (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Or seems like it somedays. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Because the impolite, vocal ones have all been.


I got that the first time. You are not going to convince me you are right. You made your point. Leave it at that. All the profanity only makes you look like an idiot.


Which, of course, is respectful and not at all condescending to say.

Generally the rule of law in the U.S. is, if you can see it from the sidewalk (i.e., public property), you can photograph it, and in most cases, you can publish it. Nudie pics you catch from the sidewalk will probably depend on your state's pornography and slander laws. There is some debate of how much privacy you can expect if you're in your house with the curtains open, so it'll just vary by state.

HOWEVER, if you are in an establishment, which includes a house, a restaurant, a taxi, an airplane, a YMCA, a government office, etc., you follow the rules set by the owner of that establishment. If I own a restaurant, I can require you to wear shirt and shoes, I can require you NOT wear shirt and shoes, I can require no cameras, whatever. The exception here would be if it is medically necessary as covered under the ADA. So most restaurants must provide a wheelchair ramp or provide justification as to why they can't. However, camera glasses are not recognized as a medical device, and they were not medically required for the individual in the story, so it doesn't apply here (as much as he wishes it did). I've worked in locations which banned all cameras, including cell phones. It's quite legal, although not so practical. The fact that all my customers are doing is eating sandwiches has no relevance. All that is relevant is that it's my restaurant, and I said no damn cameras. If that case above were in the US, the manager would have been in his right to arrest the fellow for trespassing. (Still not right for the staff to break his stuff, of course.)

I do expect that people will learn how to turn things like Google Glass into a medical device, and I'm guessing it will be on The List of approved medical devices soon. The people who make that list don't normally talk with anyone outside of their community. It'll need to go to court; hopefully in a case like NSA v. Bob the Blind Fellow, so the government can establish stringent requirements on medically necessary cameras. But until then, American law hasn't really dealt with that issue.

There is also an exception to that first rule, above. Somehow (of course) government believes it's exempt from its own laws, so some buildings CANNOT be photographed from the sidewalk, and they will take your camera and break it if you do that. If that fellow walks by those buildings, he'll probably be arrested. I expect in SR, this will extend to some megacorp buildings. I don't know how they'd deal with it though when 2% of the population has cybereyes, and they can't be easily detected. Probably just selective enforcement.

Excepting those parts which are specifically attributed elsewhere, these are all US laws, and fully applicable to you, Shadowdragon.

And since it is entirely out of your hands what others do with an image once it has been taken, the barrier is set at taking images...

Well with the megacorps polarized mirrored windows are pretty much standard so even if you walked by Ares Regional Office in D.C. you wouldn't be able to see anything anyway so the passerby issue is probably moot. If the guy is standing there staring at said windows they might check him out assuming he is trying to astral perceive or use some other vision range/xray device/other...

But the things about building exteriors that the occupants don't want photographed are generally on the outside of the building, so polarizing the windows tends not to matter. They're looking to stop people from photographing card reader locations, tendancies to allow shoulder surfing, camera blind spots, crash barricade spacing and locations, and other assorted security measures. The FBI doesn't care if you take a picture of Janice behind the reception desk, unless you happen to take enough video to notice that she puts on her headphones and zones out for fifteen minutes, every morning at 1015.

The funny thing about that is, because of Extraterritoriality, the megacorp has no enforcement jurisdiction if you're taking video, images, photos, reconnaissance, whatever, of their property from a place which is not-their-property. So they actually don't have any legal recourse against it, the laws of the nation they bought their slice of their-sovereignty from apply. (Unless that slice of not-their-property is a different extraterritoriality, of course.)

Naturally, they'll just send legbreakers to enforce their requirements for privacy instead.



Was I somehow nonspecific when I stated above that "I do not care about the laws of ... the United States ..." in my previous post? No, really, I would like to know, was that somehow not specific enough for you? Did I need to append "of America" to get the point across, or should I have also appended "that one sandwiched between Canada and Mexico, bordering both Atlantic and Pacific oceans?" I am not talking about the law of the land, or any land, but of how things ought to be.



Nope, sorry.

"Because someone might take a picture which is not criminal but then do something criminal with it" is the same as criminalizing keys jangling in a person's pocket because he might scratch up cars with them.

When and if someone does something which is criminal with the picture he's taken, then you have a case to take him to court and have him stretched over a barrel. Not before, and you certainly don't have the right to make him stop whatever he's doing. You do have the right to depart (if you're in public) or enhance your private space's ocular security (drawing the shades), of course. If he persists (following you in public; moving around your house to get more pics,) then he's being a stalker and you can (and should!) bring the full weight of the local law down upon his head. But not before.

And no, you should not have any right to demand he delete his images.

Actually, isn't that one one of the sample Condition geasa IN Street Magic? I could be misremembering, it's been a while!

Yes you can use going nekkid as a condition geasa.

It was the followup question about using that JUST for ritual that we pointed out that geasa affect all of your magics, so either cast all the time in the buff or break the geas.

Still could prove to be a useful distraction.

'So let me get this straight, you two mooks were on guard duty when 6 attractive co-eds approached our eastern check point right by the R&D department, proceeded to undress and in your words 'cavort about'. Somewhere during all this cavorting you found yourselves in a similar state of undress but with only 4 of the young 'ladies'. And that was right before the ... hold on.. what was the phrase.. ah yes.. the 'moving mountain' crashed out through the wall of the facility being ridden by the two missing girls AND the prototype? And at no point during this entire fiasco did it occur to you to call this in or... oh... you were GOING to but you found yourself strapped to the gate just out of reach of your clothes and comm. <remainder of interview terminated as were the two security personnel... footage was lifted from the guards cybercam and is currently being 'reviewed' by the Head of Security, VP Johnson and a number of senior execs>

If it's good enough for Naruto.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Extraterritoriality does not presume they have no other protections. I suspect if you wandered around DC filming the British embassy, you'd find yourself in hot water even though they aren't a U.S. government building, and they rely on extraterritoriality.



This may come as a mild shock to you, but I don't take notes on every thing you say in every post. You said several times that you're not in France and you don't care what the laws of France are, and I was responding to that.




You mean like the laws limiting your and my ability to wander around in public with a firearm, or to own machine guns, etc., due to the possibility that we MIGHT cause harm with them?

I'll agree with you that your view on things is certainly the ideal, but it's not very useful for determining what the actual laws are, or what would be the smartest way to operate under those laws.

Nekkedness is often the best distraction.



Poor bastards. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Bwahahahaaaaaaah!



Yes, but Embassies are rather a rare and unique deal these days. In Shadowrun, every Weapons World, DocWagon clinic, and probably Stuffer Shack is Extraterritorial (okay, maybe not the Stuffer Shacks,) so they simply cannot rate the same level of host-country protection. Also, an embassy can be rejected by ordering the personnel there to depart, whereas in Shadowrun, the UCAS can't just say "we're tired of you guys stinking up our soil and then running back to your storefront and shouting "Base," so get lost."

I don't imagine that the same rules apply.



Funnily enough, if you only skim what someone says and then respond to them bitingly, you may find yourself looking a mite foolish when it turns out that they did, in fact, cover your exact point earlier.




Nice strawman there. First of, those laws are not universal. There are states where you need literally no permit whatsoever to walk around with a firearm about your person, and in most others you may still receive license to so do. Secondly, a camera is not a weapon in the sense that it causes immediate physical harm.