From: Michael Lorrey (mike@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Feb 05 2001 - 10:33:58 MST
Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> "Michael M. Butler" wrote:
> >
> > Solution: full disclosure? "Officer, for quality purposes, I am
> > recording this conversation. No, I can't turn it off, it doesn't work
> > like that, sorry; the system is designed to roll non stop whenever my
> > car is not parked in my garage. I wish I could help you. I need to be
> > going now."
> >
> > As far as video recording (not audio) goes, the courts appear to have
> > mostly ruled using the notion of "a reasonable expectation of privacy".
>
> So how can any interaction with a "public servant" in their official
> capacity be considered private?
Under the Privacy Act of 1974, a private citizen has the right to expect
that government held information about them of many kinds is not made
public. Punishment for a government person violating this is a ten year
prison sentence and/or a $20,000 fine. That private individual does have
the right to disclose whatever information they want publicly, but
governments have been trying to turn the use of this law around to
restrain private citizens from disclosing information about abusive
interactions with government officials, and ignores the prosecution of
officials that violate it. Example: Pentagon disclosures of Linda
Tripp's personnel files in order to asassinate her character in the
Lewinsky scandal. I've seen enlistees get sent to Leavenworth Prison for
ten years for forgetting to put away a personnel file, yet high ranking
officials never get busted on this when done for political purposes.
Filegate, for example, has given the DNC gigabytes of dirt on hundreds
of high ranking GOP officials and private party contributors.
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