Well, some may feel so here


Yes, the whole 'it's a weapon' line was a bit ridiculous, at first I thought the guy was being written up for littering on the sidewalk but when I go back and listen it sounds like he was smoking while on the sidewalk along the beach.

Have not been out to Cali in quite a time but still thought outdoor smoking was allowed, but maybe because it was adjoining the beach smoking may have been restricted.

In any case a bit weird all around.

Contrary to carrying keys in your pocket, there is normally no compelling and legitimate interest for taking pics of a random person. That does not make it illegal in itself (there is no compelling interest in wearing a certain color of lipstick, which doesn't mean it should be banned), but "just because" provides a rather poor counterweight against potential abuses. The opposite may of course also be true, for example when matters of press are concerned. Again, a question of balancing legal interests.

There is also no compelling and legitimate interest to forbid taking pictures of random people who are in public, engaged in doing public things. Is it asinine if they tell you to delete the photos and you say no, yes, it is. Should they have recourse if you use those photos inappropriately, such as commercially profiting off their image or to libel their character or person, absolutely.

But if you're willing to let someone see you in a given state, time, and place, with your naked eyeballs, you have in my estimation no reasonable expectation of privacy, which means that you should have no recourse if they decide to snap a picture for posterity as well, whether it's of you, or not of you and you happen to be in-frame.

Once the image is recorded, what happens with it is out of your hands. What good exactly are laws which allow you to control something but don't intervene when the decision gets taken out of your hands?


...then this is something completely different from a permanent recording. If you insist that getting a look at something is the same as recording it, try getting a camcorder into a cinema. By your logic it should be completely legal, only once you have put the movie online could the cinema take action against you.

Quite frankly, not much, except they let you get your day in court if the image is used unlawfully. That's as it should be. It still lets you slam down hard on people who use it for commercial or other profit-generating purpose, however.




Bootlegging is, in fact, only a crime once you distribute it. At that point, it's not the cinema's problem, it's the movie studio's problem, and the MPAA will come hunting for you. I agree with your statement: by my logic, it should damn well be completely legal to record a flick in a theater for future private use, and it's only a crime when you have then gone and done something illegal with it, like file-shared it or burnt it onto DVDs and sold it out of the back of a van in Chinatown. Granted that the cinema won't see it that way, and given the construction of movie theaters, I can see also see a good case being made that the interior of the venue does not constitute "public," since they are almost universally constructed without windows or other means to see them from the parking lot, back alley, etcetera, and you are paying for admission to a private space, but quite frankly when it comes to corporations I'm all for giving them as little leeway as possible and reading all laws in a manner which favors the little guy as much as possible.

... and protects perverts who post creepshots on reddit.

If they post a picture of you in an actual state of undress, or which they had to do more than look into your windows from the sidewalk outside then you have a case. Elsewise, yes, and that's as it should be.

Sorry, hermit, but when it comes to protecting the freedoms of expression, speech, and the press, the right to not have people on the internet fapping over a picture of you clothed that was snapped randomly must take the back seat. If they climbed a tree to get a picture of the inside of your bedroom, snapped a picture of the inside of a restroom stall or public swimming pool's showers, or actually tailed you around town, then you'd also have a case.

No, it doesn't. No matter how much you want it to.

Yes, yes it must. No matter how much you want it not to. Such institutions - the right of speech, of press and expression - are far more vital to an open, free and democratic society than the right of people to rest safe and sure that someone 2,500 miles away doesn't know what their face looks like. If you don't like it, don't go out. Keep your ground-level windows obscured, do your business by telecommunications as much as possible, avoid crowds and places where people gather when going out-of-doors is unavoidable and so forth and so on.

You have no right to expect or hope, let alone demand, that if you place yourself in a position where a person who is not explicitly looking for you can see you with their eyeballs, that their lenses should be somehow abjured against. This is the 21st century, everybody has a camera in their pockets. Deal with it. Either stop worrying, or become a shut-in, because expecting people not to snap pictures of that which they can see with their own eyes in public is ludicrous.

Quite on the countrary. If you know everything you do is being recorded, you act differently - unfreely. If there are people infringing on that freedom, they, and not the people they harass, have to be regulated. Freedom without people feeling free to go about their business isn't freedom. It's the opposite. Sousveillance only turns the world into a prison and everyone into everyone else's guards.


Thinking people like you won't be pushing themselves and their views on everybody is tridiculous indeed. All the more reason for laws to regulate this, as is the norm in civilised countries. Becvause the 21st century is not about thugs with cameras. Or at least, it should not be.

Guys, it is screamingly apparant that neither of you is going to budge an inch. Therefore anything you post at each other on this subject is a complete waste of time. Can you drop it for the time being?

I do find it slightly ironic that the guy in the original linked article was only using a short duration recording buffer, not making permanent video copy, and as such isn't really part of either position's complaints.



-k

Maybe is missed the point, but what has the right of speech, of press and expression to do with peeping into other peoples windows or gardens and uploading your cam shots on facebook?


Now i feel real free.


Maybe some people see a differnence between looking into someones eyes and getting a cam stuck in their face. Nobody really talks about a cam in the pocket, its about the cam into the face.

The US has made this pretty clear; there's only a very limited righ to privacy in the public space. If I'm on the sidewalk, you can photograph me. I do have SOME right to privacy still; you can't take pictures up my kilt or dig into my backpack. But everything that is open for the public to see is open for the public to photograph. I understand that Europe operates very differently, and has a huge focus on the right to privacy.

And ultimately, the fact that there is such a debate going on is a good thing. The right to free press (even when it's not a professional news organization) is critical. So is the right to privacy. Where to draw that line is non-trivial. No matter how you cut it, someone will lose liberties.

But again, this doesn't apply inside of a privately-owned establishment. Just like I can request you not bring cameras into my house, I can request you not bring them into my restaurant. In fact, such policies are common practice in places like gyms and art shows, and they are enforced by the police (as violation is trespassing). IMO, that's the right stance to take. If I'm in public, my face is now revealed to the public and, unfortunately, that's a necessary cost of going into public. It would be an undue burden to require that every Joe taking selfies with his cell phone abstain while any other person might be caught in the frame. But when I'm in private, I'm in private, and I have a right to an expectation of privacy. This should be enforced by the law.

I'll try not to respond to hermit and nevermind, since, as KarmaInferno pointed out, we might as well both be arguing at a brick wall, with fundamentally incompatible points of view.

@nezumi, though: I'm not convinced that areas of an enterprise which are open to the public should have an expectation of privacy. Indeed, I would argue that all areas of enterprise, as opposed to actual private dwellings, should have a reduced right to privacy as a matter of public interest - if someone is up to something heinous, like horrifically unhygenic conditions in the back of an eatery, for example, the compelling interest is not their right to protect their privacy, it's the public's right to know just how godawful gross their kitchens are.

However, even leaving that aside, as I can fully understand why a closed office building wouldn't really want people wandering around it all day, when it comes to a place of enterprise where the entire point of its existence is for members of the public to enter and transact their business - such as the eating areas of a restaurant, the shopping floors of a shop, etcetera - I would argue that, by the nature of their enterprise and by opening their doors to the public, the shop's owners and operators should have forfeited their right to privacy in those areas. Unfortunately, it's also going to be impossible to enforce/prove their loss of the right to privacy, because such places have to have the right to refuse service, for instance to loud, abrasive assholes, those who abuse the employees, etcetera, and they can simply eject someone they don't like taking pictures under false pretenses.

that place of business belongs to someone. it is that person's private property. they are inviting people in, but just as you are allowed to invite people into your own house with stipulations, they are also allowed to do the same.

it is *not* a public place. it is a private place which has an open invitation to enter as the default. in much the same way that these forums are not public space, they are privately owned, and the owner can tell any one of us to shut up and go away if they feel so inclined.

and you don't need to take pictures of some restaurant's toilet, because you're not the health inspector. if you have specific health concerns regarding a specific restaurant, you probably should try contacting said health inspector instead of trying to claim that freedom of the press entitles some random schmuck to do whatever they feel like whenever they feel like.

freedom of the press doesn't mean reporters get to go anywhere they like, or do whatever they like, in pursuit of a story; it means you don't regulate what the press is allowed to say. it doesn't give anyone a license for trespassing, breaking and entering, corporate espionage, stalking, or any other undesirable behaviour. it has absolutely nothing to do with the right to take pictures of whoever or whatever you please without limitation.

I'd think that the particular case you're talking about are what whistleblower laws should provide for. "It's normally illegal to share this sensitive data/take pictures, but what they were doing was morally wrong and I had to report it."

I've been in restaurant bathrooms which I'm sure violate health codes, but I don't think that means we should let people bring cameras into those bathrooms. I'm also aware of many clubs whose primary service is privacy, and if customers knew just any Joe Blow could bring a camera in, it would destroy the business and the customers' expectations of privacy.