From: Zero Powers (zero_powers@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon May 15 2000 - 19:21:16 MDT
>From: KPJ <kpj@sics.se>
>
> > You have no right to privacy when you are in public.
>
>It depends. You are not required to strip naked in the public.
You are not *required* to do anything in public, or in private (except of
course pay taxes :)
You are not required to strip in public because, in most places, being naked
in public is against the law. You are not required to yell out every
conversation at the top of your lungs either, but this is not the same thing
as having a right to privacy in public. If I have exceptional hearing (or
an exceptionally powerful listening device) there is nothing which prevents
me from eavesdropping in on your "private" conversations, so long as those
private conversations take place in a public area.
You are right about the privacy arms race. If you can block my interception
of your public conversations (by putting your hand over your mouth, or
whispering in your partner's ear, or by some sort of elecronic scrambling
device) you may prevent me from hearing what you have to say. But if I can
overcome your technology with my own more powerful technology, I have not
broken the law by using it (in public, that is).
-Zero
"I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past"
--Thomas Jefferson
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