concerning "Privacy"Follow

If you're doing nothing wrong..... then why should you care?

but that Time that you value is provided to you with the protective wing of you government. You want your cake and eat it too?

The Canadian gubberment has a protective wing?

Oh you must be talking about the fancy book learning people who live in them thar cities.

I'm a menonite and we shun all such advancements.

I care because the government is not always right in regards to what is right or wrong. There is no way, either before I smoked, during when I smoked nor after I smoked that you can tell me that marijuana is bad. It just sets off my cognitive and reasoning side of my brain, and tells me that they are not in it for the people's interests.

If I'm doing nothing wrong, why are they so interested in invading my privacy?

For the government to start poking around in my private dealings is a declaration of mistrust towards me on their part.

That is to say that trust is largely mutual. If the government is mistrusting me enough without cause to poke into my business and dealings, I have no reason to trust that the government will use that information responsibly and in my best interests.

Sam's right. The fruit of the poison tree doctrine only comes into play when the search is illegal to begin with. But if the search is legal, any evidence collected can be used.

But to expand on the rights guaranteed in the Fourth Amendment, searches are done on probable cause and without warrants in some circumstances. However, the Fourth Amendment comes into play mainly when a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. So if you're observed in a public area buying drugs (where you have a less expectation of privacy) and THEN go to your home to do said drugs, the police can build a case to probable cause to gain entry into your home.

You have to also remember that technically there is no constitutional "right to privacy" as such. Privacy rights are really an extension of property right. The idea is that you own your property and therefore what you do with it is your own business. There are different levels of ownership and property though. At the highest level, you own your own body, mind, and voice, so the government can't compel you to use that against yourself. Land is the next highest, so the government can't force you to use your land in ways you don't want, with the only exception being emminent domain (which we discussed recently). Next are "things" you own. You have the most right to them, but in the case of a crime, we can certainly take your gun away and examine it for evidence that you used it to kill someone. But then we need a warrant (a bit lower down the legal tree then emminent domain). Finally, there's aspects of public displays of your property. So what you do with your own body in public is a matter of public interest. So we can use those actions against you (in the sense of witnesses to a crime for example).


Um... Not to be obvious or anything, but the abortion issue is one of property as well. A woman owns her own body. It's her property (and is the highest level of property). The law should not tell her what to do with that body in the case of abortion. At least that's one side. The other is that once fertilized, the human-to-be then should gain right to property of it's own body, and the woman should not have a right to destroy it, but that's another argument.

Interestly enough, I made an analogy between pro-lifers and abolishionists a week or so ago. Same deal there. It's an issue of property. The pro-slavery folks believed that slaves were their property. Thus, the government had no right to say what they could do with them, and certainly could not take them away without due process and compensation. However in the case of slavery, the Supreme Court ruled that a state could outlaw that form of property and so a slave in a state with laws against slavery would no longer be property (and would therefore be free). The states were free to pass their own laws determining whether a negro was a "human" and therefore deserving of individual rights, or whether he was property.


Yeah. A little off track. I know. Just wanted to point out that privacy rights are really all about property rights. There is no expectation of privacy in your life. Only an expectation that your property should not be arbitrarily riffled through at the whim of the government.

So as long as the goverment doesn't tag my *** with a barcode, stop me from smoking a "J" in the comfort of my house and start inspecting my undies for brown streaks without a warrant, then we should be OK.





Edited, Thu Jul 7 18:51:34 2005 by fenderputy

There is a limit though of course. Concider that tinted windows are illegal in my state. How does that work?

If I want to drive naked in my car I should be able too.
Is this because our vehicles are upon public roads and they can have their way because they built the roads?

..or why wouldn't it be illegal to walk around with a mask on as well? It's obviously not a right but a privledge.. otherwise there wouldn't be so many exceptions.. right?


I'm just full of dumb questions tonight..


cough

Nah. It's all about property. Read the post above yours. Every thing was about "don't do this to *my* <whatever>".

Can I search in a public place? Of course. It's not the search, but where. Where is about property. You can't search "my property" unless I give you permission. There is no argument for privacy that does not include within it the assumption that we're talking about "private property".

Now you can argue that's just semantics, but it's realy not. Before the enlightenment came along with its ideas of human rights, individuals did not own property. You were given use of things by your rulers, but the "king/emperor/head cheese" owned all the property (and that's not just land, but everything!). It was a very new idea that every citizen could own their own stuff, and it's from that idea that we get the concept that private citizens own private property and therefore can have "privacy".

It's still all about property. If I take away your right to own property of any kind, then I have also by definition removed your right to privacy as well. Can't have one without the other.


Um... Not to tangent again, but... This is also the fundamental schism present in Liberalism and from which we derive the concept of the Liberal and Conservative political positions. At some point, those same Liberalists, realized that allowing an absolute right to property without interferrence inevitably led to inequity (some would have more property/wealth then others). This was counter to the idea of humans being equal, and some Liberalists disagreed with unfettered property rights. They argued the human dignity was also an important part of the equation, and if people are demonstrably poor while others are demonstrably wealthy, then the poor can't possibly have dignity, and this will cause problems in your society.

Thus, the Liberals of today believe that a portion of liberty (property specifically) can and must be sacrificed in the name of dignity for all people (does this sound familiar?). Clearly, if you tax me unequally because I have more, then you are taking my property, right? That's a fundamental violation of classical Liberalist ideals, and most classical Conservatives believe it should be done only when the need is critical. This is why Liberals in the US are largely focused towards taking away property from some to give dignity to others (economic freedom), while Conservatives are not as willing to do so (although we're not as absolute about it as say Libertarians would be).

Kinda wanted to point that out to show that taxes are a form of violation of privacy as well. We may choose to take from people what they earned for the "greater good", but should always be aware that we are taking a measure of liberty away when we do that. So when people say something like "But Bush wants to lower taxes on the wealthy!!!", and I respond with "Yeah. And that's wrong why?", you'll understand why I take that position. It's not greedy to believe that you have a right to your own property. It's perhaps "good" to share that, and even willingly accept that some portion should go to the greater good, but to call someone greedy because he believes that too much of his money is being taken for things that he doesn't believe really help the "greater good"? That's not greed. That's someone's right.

I can see where you are coming from, and in time I can imagine police coming up with some sort of special x-ray machine to actually do that.

Implications aside, they have to have a reason to come to the door in the first place. Logically, they analyze the reasons (there for simple question about lost dog, suspect a murder inside house, ect) and take due action with provided information

The question still remains, how did they gather the provided information?


Edited, Thu Jul 7 20:31:55 2005 by Molish