Cash Value 1/10 of a Cent 183
goombah99 writes "It happens all-too-often that the govenment and companies negligently reveal citizen's private information on their websites. When collection of this information is something required by law there is an obligation to protect it. But is privacy a 'property' and does its loss require compensation? Wired news reports 'The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday over whether the federal government should reimburse individuals whose sensitive data was disclosed illegally, even if no harm can be proven. At issue before the court, according to privacy advocates, is how valuable privacy really is.'"
The Issue (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the wording is odd in that statement. It isn't privacy that is a property, it's the information that is a property. Privacy is a means to protect that information, and failing to protect personal "property" that someone is required to provide is my issue here. Just as if the government required a key to your house and then made then available for duplication.
Whats good for the goose (Score:4, Insightful)
I think so (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Issue (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a privilege, it's an inalienable right. It's granted to you by your existance. It can only be taken away by due process or your own abdication of it.
Privilege implies you have to be a good little boy before it applies to you, and that it can be taken away at any time for any reason.
this is stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
privacy is privacy and it should apply to all equally. who determines what the cost was? for famous person it's pretty easy to prove lose, but for the average joe, we're just fucked. fuck that noise
disclaimer: I did not RTFA
The value of privacy. (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, they should reimburse people for breaches. Stupidity should definitely be painful.
Re:The Issue (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet different ownership of critical information is, to use a very cliched example, what makes systems like RSA work. You don't want the world and his wife able to get at your bank account. Only in a perfect communist state could information be free - and then only because it's valueless. There would be nothing to protect.
I like the point on rights as priveleges by the way. Only addition I'd like to make is that this only works because power is outsourced to the government. Personally, I find the most appropriate model for this sort of issue is to consider the government as a very large company. Then we can see that "rights" just represent power that hasn't left the hands of the individual yet.
Now there's a depresing thought...
Re:The Issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Privacy isn't a right per-se...
It most certainly IS a right. It is not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights but it is one of the most primary of the unenumerated rights as specified in the 9th Amendment.
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
If semantics say (Score:4, Insightful)
then why is it the death penalty flies in the face of our constitutional rights?
(your rights can be taken away too ya know)
It Has To Be Made A Property, For Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely, unequivocally "YES" on both counts.
We live in an increasingly Corporate culture, where it's always "the economy stupid." We have become global Corporate citizens instead of citizens of any one particular country. Privacy is not respected by the machinery of business, and those of you out there who have ever worked with or in a Marketing department know what I'm talking about.
It took a law to put the brakes on telemarketers, and God knows what it will take to stop spam, if that's even possible. But by making privacy a "property" that has monetary value, we can finally put it on the radar screens of Big Business.
Re:The Issue (Score:2, Insightful)
Harm (Score:3, Insightful)
How can you disprove harm in this case?
A social security number is an American's entire life and worth, as far as law and government are concerned.
Without it, you arent even a vote.
Privacy is a Constitutional Right (Score:5, Insightful)
That's article IX or the U.S. COnstitution. The fact that trroubling issues of privacy and technology didn't arise until 220 years later doesn't mean jack shit to me. Article IX makes it quite clear that the notion of a "Right to Privacy" must certainly exist. How dare anyone disparage my beleif that it is my right? The time is drawing near when politicians who ignore the Constitution and the judges who are bought right along with them, will have to account for their actions. And I'm not talking about violence here. I'm talking about a second Constitutional Convention. Something that strikes fear into the heart of every politician and every greed head in the land.
A Second Constitutional Convention [wikipedia.org] would do us a world of good. And possibly a world of hurt as well, but the medicine must be strong for what we've allowed this nation to mutate into. All it would take is a two-thirds vote of the states. The day is coming. It might not be right around the corner, but it is coming.
Constitutional Right? (Score:4, Insightful)
Consequently, it is not clear what the basis will be for any Supreme Court judgement in this case. Usually the Supreme Court rules when two or more Constitutional rights are at odds with each other (e.g. 10th vs. 16th
So a key question is whether the Supreme Court, through its judgement(s), can establish such an expliit right
Personally, I think we need more federal legislation and/or Constitional Amendments safe-guarding our privacy rights. In recent years, we've seen a piece-meal movement toward achieving such a goal (most notably, rights protecting student/criminal records) but it should be a concerted agenda. This will become a much more pressing need as the availability of sophisticated, cost-effective information technology increases. Can you imagine *physical* stores creating databases based on security camera recordings? It's not far-fetched (Vegas casinos already do it)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
The Real Question of Questions (Score:3, Insightful)
If private information is released, and no one is affected by it, then why is it a problem to release private information in the first place?
This creates its own self-serving logic... which logically (and it doe smake sense) gives right to let the supreme court release what they want.
However, if it is a problem to release private inforamtion... then let's step back: why should government have this private information to begin with? Do they actually *need* these certain things? Control for the sake of control? Is technology and thirst for statistics driving the need for more and more details... which inherently run into the problems or corruption and misuse that we seeing arise in such cases as this article?
Re:The Issue (Score:4, Insightful)
First, like another reply, the guarantee of rights is lost on conviction, not commission. That standard allows us to prevent convictions of murders in self-defense and other murky offenses. Second, the nature of something being a "perverted act" (by anyone's definition) is not a constitutionally-sound basis for a law (see Lawrence v. Texas). The basis for molestation laws is the harm to the molested person, not the act of molestation itself. Thus, what would otherwise be molestation in a consentual situation where both people are after the age of consent is just normal sexual contact. (Disclaimer: IANAL.)
Damages? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now then, if no "damage" was done, was there a crime? You're damned right!! Something was done against an unwilling individual that made them feel quite uncomfortable and would rather you hadn't done it. It was without consent, immoral and while no "damage" was done, it was still a violation of that other person's will. In fact, asside from degrees of severity, I see no difference between the crime of rape and the crime of stealing, selling or otherwise abusing my personal information. When there is so much about a person that defines a personality, I have realized that anything as simple as a [portable cell] phone number is actually a part of a person's identity... as much as a person's address, place of work, the car he drives or the people he knows. It's a part of the definition of a person. Using and abusing that person constitutes an abuse of that person.
Is this an extreme opinion? Maybe... I don't know... it's a question of where you want to draw the line. But consider how uncomfortable you might feel about life if you knew something about yourself was out there somewhere being abused.
Compensation culture (Score:4, Insightful)
People should receive fair damages or reimbursement of losses sustained through the negligence or incompetence of others. It is not right that they culprit is "fined" and the proceeds passed to the victim.
If a Government causes damage by revealing private information it should compensate the victim even if it is only a token amount for embarrassment. If the misbehavior is so bad that it deserves a punitive settlement I see no reason for that to be paid to the victim. There are many better ways of distributing these windfalls.
If a department loses a chunk of its budget through malicious or arrogant disclosure of personal information it might start asking who was responsible and trying to prevent future abuses. There is no need to turn it into a get rich scheme and a honeypot for ambulance chasing lawyers.
ZB
If it can be sold, it has value: "free" offers (Score:3, Insightful)
If my information has value, no offer should be allowed to use the term "free!" if your personal information will be sold by the company. If they sell it, it has cash value to them, and so the deal is not "free".
Re:The Issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullocks.
If you tell me your phone number, and I tell someone else, I have invaded your privacy, but I certainly haven't infringed upon your rights--and there should be no consequnece to me.
The government, of course, is a special case--but so are spouses, doctors, lawyers, and priests--who DO have legal authority to mainatin your privacy.
Re:The Issue (Score:1, Insightful)
Come to that there are no rights inherent to existence... or inveresly all rights are inherent to existence. It ultimately depends on what you mean by existance.. wheter existence itself predicates the necestity of "a way things should be" rather than "the way things are." The latter we can genreal reach via the short cut of emperism, the former requires an alternate method.. and I doubt we'll even come close to a subtial answer through discourse in a dialouge set aside for that purpose alone, much less a tangent thread on slashdot (my thread, not yours).
Regardles as to what levels of privacy we can "rightously" say we are entitled to under natural law we can still say privacy is a right due to people under a goverment.
The goverment has never, and never will, be able to decide on what are natural rights. They can only balence the will of the people, the stablity of the goverment, and the stablity of the society. But within these constraints the goverment is able to allow for the creation of thin natural rights (that is to say they are thin because they are dependant upon the goverment's interprertation). These thin rights can be, and are, superceeded when they could potentaily cause too much distruption to the will of the people, the stablity of the goverment or the stablity of the society.
For example, under our law, we belive in the right to life. That is to say a human's life is considered important and one should not be able to take that away from them. HOwever this law is superceded in cases of self defense, war, or captial punishment. Like wise we have the "thin right" of freedom of speech, but this again is curtialed when we might speak out in hate, or try to give out business secerts that we learned improperly.
These thin rights come from the will of the people. And I would say it is defintily the will of the people to have a level of privacy (a resonable expectation that one's life is free from observation). But this thin right is balanced by the people's will (how much the general population thinks that an indivdual should expect to have privacy) the stablity of goverment (how effective will the goverment be if it can't observe a person's life to a degree), etc.
I'm really just using these as an excercise to try and get some thoughts out. I'm not nesecarly saying I think all this is right or true... esp. the idea that natrual rights don't exist. I believe they do... I just don't believe what the goverment might claim as natural rights, are...allthough I think they might start out that way within the will of the people. I'm also considering govemrent itself as an entity rather than the people therein.. that is to say no one person or group of persons is the goverment.. rather it is the laws, traditions, power, etc that defines it.
Blah, I'm too far off tanget.
later
Re:The Issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Privacy vs . Intellectual Property (Score:2, Insightful)
What about Intellectual Property and Copyright?
The RIAA bills you $150.000 a song by distribution via Kazza
SCO belives that they have such an abstract thing as Intellectual Property of the Linux kernel because they granted some companies (IBM) access to source code...
As mentioned above about my private data: If it can be sold, it has value!
NoSuchGuy
Re:The Issue (Score:3, Insightful)
If everyone has access to your medical records, even if they can't change them, we could start getting to a Gattaca [imdb.com] style world; where people are discriminated against based upon their genetic profile.
We could make laws that say having access to certain information can't affect your decisions, but that is easily circumvented by finding or creating other "reasons" to select a differen, "better" individual.
Total access to purchasing history could make companies vulnerable to attack. If someone knows you recently purchased a certain router or operating system, they could use known exploits against you immediately. They still can now, but the limitation of that information makes that action more difficult.
Privacy secures certain other freedoms. A total lack of privacy could cause substantial issues.
Re:The Issue (Score:3, Insightful)
By that logic --
Freedom is a privledge. This is evidenced by taking away freedom from convicted criminals.
Voting is a privledge. This is evidenced by taking away voting rights from convicted criminals.
Living is a privledge. This is evidenced by taking away life from convicted murderers.
Just because it can be taken away doesn't mean it's a privledge. The constitution guarantees not to take life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The argument here is that privacy is property, and illegally releasing it amounts to a taking of said property.
Re:The Issue (Score:1, Insightful)
Therefore you place a violent criminal in prison and let him go after it is decided that he is no longer a threat to society. No need to further violate his rights. If he is still a threat, don't release him. If he isn't a threat why open him up to public harassment?
Sure it would be nice to know that someone who committed a crime against you has been punished. However it is far more important to see that it doesn't happen again.
Think about it and you'll see why our criminal justice system doesn't work.
Re:The Issue (Score:2, Insightful)
A problem with the legal system in the US is this mindset that exercising your rights can't infringe on someone else's rights. How's that? So if you have the right to peace and quiet and I have the right to chainsaw firewood in my back yard, whos rights win out? The one with the most legal clout? Yes, exactly. In other words, the one with the most money.
That's the hard part about living in harmony. You have to give a little to get a little in return. If nobody budges then... well! You have what we have today in the USA. Too many people pissed off at each other, no community, nobody talks, hair trigger road rage, what a messed up state of society.
I think we need to change our thinking on what freedoms people have and don't have. Some freedoms are mutually exclusive and that's life.
Re:The Issue (Score:2, Insightful)