Right? to Privacy.

[rahmota]

Ok this is where we disect the right to Privacy. Does it exist, is it a real right. Is there ANY legal basis for this in any code codex or tome in the histories of humanity or is this one of those thigns that everybody assumes that there is just because it is. Tell me what do you think the mic is yours.....

Oh and BTW. My personal POV on this is that the right to privacy in you home and your sanctum is one of those rights that you get just for being born. Everybody needs to have a place they can feel safe and secure and hidden frm the prying eyes of the verse in.

[Seshat]

It's not a legal document (I think), but article 12 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights reads:

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

[Greenday]

I feel within your own property, you should be able to do anything you want that is moral. Such things as starting a meth lab, a gang, etc. are not moral.

I know the government listening in to phone conversations is considered a privacy violation, but if you don't want the government hearing you say something, should you really be saying it at all? I mean, do you honestly think that the FBI REALLY gives a crap about your personal life as long as it doesn't involve terrorism or highly-illegal activities?

[AFPheonix]

I know the government listening in to phone conversations is considered a privacy violation, but if you don't want the government hearing you say something, should you really be saying it at all? I mean, do you honestly think that the FBI REALLY gives a crap about your personal life as long as it doesn't involve terrorism or highly-illegal activities?

Oh? And if say, tomorrow our government was overthrown by a military junta ala Burma, and we, as citizens, were imprisoned in our own homes for speaking out against the government, would you say the same thing?
This is exactly why they should not be phone tapping without warrants and without probable cause. We have the warrant system for a reason, and it's to prevent government from overreaching its boundaries.
I really, really hate the line of thinking that you shouldn't be saying things that the government wouldn't want to hear. The government is not always going to be benevolent. Power will always corrupt, and government of any kind, including our own, needs boundaries to keep from stepping on its own citizens.
It fries me enough that the Senate chose to hold a goddamned vote to condemn that Moveon.org ad against Petraeus. If even the Senate is wanting to censor free speech (and their actions are available for all to see!), think what the FBI or CIA is willing to do, and they aren't required to air their dirty laundry until well after they've gone and done bad things. Not cool.

[Greenday]

Even if you do voice your dissatisfaction with the current government, they will not care unless you are actively plotting to do something about it. The government isn't going to bash down our doors for saying, "I don't like Bush."

[Seshat]

The current US government, no. Certain past governments? Yup.

I know a woman whose family was in Russia during the Russian revolution, and they moved to Poland. They're Jewish by blood, and were Jewish by religion in Russia. They changed their religion when they moved to Poland. (She was born while they were in Poland.) (Russian Revolution: 1917. Hitler's invasion of Poland: 1939.)

If they hadn't changed their religion, they'd probably have been picked up by the Nazis. This woman still, to this day, obsessively dyes her hair blonde and keeps her family history quiet. I heard about it from her son. Why does she dye her hair blonde? Because she looks more Aryan that way.

She's lived through a situation where it matters what you say to whom, and who is listening. If her family had been overheard talking about something as simple as their grandmother's religious beliefs - boom. Concentration camp.

For another example: a little over fifty years ago, in the USA, there was a political climate called McCarthyism. 'Communists', 'communist sympathisers', and in some cases anyone who was simply abnormal, lost their jobs, their careers, or were imprisoned. I've heard that just being homosexual was enough.

Ten Hollywood personalities - screenwriters, directors, and others - refused to give testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee, citing their First Amendment right to free speech. They were jailed for 'contempt of Congress'.

At its height, simply being subpoenaed by the committee was enough to effectively cause you to be blacklisted.

Google 'McCarthyism', 'Hollywood Ten', 'Hollywood Blacklist' or 'House Un-American Activities Committee' for an idea of what even the Free Speech-loving USA can do and has done to its citizens.

It wasn't just hollywood celebrities it happened to - the celebrities were simply able to be loud about it. Hundreds or thousands of ordinary people lost their jobs or were imprisoned as 'communist sympathisers', whether they were or not.

(And even if they were, isn't the US supposed to be in favour of people being allowed to have free political debate?)

Those of us old enough or familiar enough with history are watching the US government - and our own governments - carefully. In the wake of September 11, some elements of government are tending towards McCarthyism-like activities. We're standing here with our pens, our votes, and our computer keyboards, ready to give our governments a swift metaphorical kick in the pants and try to prevent a 'Reds under the beds' hysteria.

But 'you're safe if you have nothing to hide' just isn't good enough. Nor is it true.

[AFPheonix]

Even if you do voice your dissatisfaction with the current government, they will not care unless you are actively plotting to do something about it. The government isn't going to bash down our doors for saying, "I don't like Bush."

I'm not a conspiracy buff or anything, but do you honestly think we'd hear about it if they did?
How do we know they haven't? It's not like this particular Administration has been above locking up citizens and taking away Habeus Corpus, or sending innocent citizens of other countries off to places that are ok with torture and letting them have at it.

[Greenday]

Well, we can look at Bush's small approval rating and assume most people don't like Bush. At some time or another, I'm sure most of the people have said that they don't like Bush. I'm pretty sure most of country has not been locked up or disappeared. If everyone who voiced their disapproval in Bush was taken away, there'd be so many people missing, how could we NOT notice it?

[Boozy]

I'm no conspiracy theorist either, but AFPheonix is right to be cautious of this government. They've passed laws that ensure they can do what they want and no one will ever know.

The day that the Patriot Act was passed and Americans did not take to the streets in outrage was the beginning of the end for America as we know it.

It may not be too late to turn things around, but one thing is definitively over: No educated person in the world now looks to the US as the embodiment of freedom.

[AFPheonix]

I'm just offering a "What if" scenario here. But it's troubling to me that this administration is one of the most closed ones ever, and have shown themselves to not be above doing some really profoundly unethical things. I don't want them in my house. I trust them about as far as I can throw them, and with weeny girl arms, that's not very far.
The government is subject to us, its citizens. We allow them to set policy in place with our input for the greater good, but there's been a lot that has not been about the greater good, its been about increasing executive power well beyond anything that its been allowed to wield before, even during other periods of strife in our history. Don't be complacent.

[rahmota]

greenday:

you should be able to do anything you want that is moral. Such things as starting a meth lab, a gang, etc. are not moral

Well heres where I disagree with one key word in that quoted phrase: Moral. When you start defining laws based on morality then you start getting into issues and problems of a whole nuther nature. Harm or benefit would be a better subject for basing laws. Ie does this law harm or benefit society in general. because if you use morals to base a law on first you have to choose whose morals you are defineing things by. This means basically choosing a religion to support as most morals are religious constructs. then you have to decide what to do with those people who disagree with the moral code you set up as their moral code differs from the ones you chose. Either you respect them and let them ignore your moral code which means the laws are useless or you crack down and disrespect them basically saying either convert or be punished. A whole nuther thread indeed.

While I do not think a meth lab is a good thing to have on a person's property for a whole variety of reasons the concept of using morals to decide what is and is not legal to do on a person's private property is dangerous ground. what if someone feels its immoral for a person to sit on a bench in their front yard and drinnk a beer? Or to work on a treehouse or somethign on sunday?

What goes on on a person's private property should only amount to one thing: Is it done by consenting adults with other consenting adults and does not do actual harm to others? If the answer is yes then there is no reason, nor should anyone do anythign about it. Yes this does mean a lot of stupid and probably immoral things will occur. But stupidity is not illegal and if it ever does become illegal then you might as well build a wall around the world and lock everyoen in it.

The other part of your comments I find disturbing as well. Its not the burden on the citizenry to not say thigns the government might not like. Yes we have mostly free speech in this country but that hinges on the ability to say thigns that others disagree with or dislike even those in power. If you start having to worry about saying somethign the nightwatch might not like or the forces in power would disagree with then the whole point of free speech is lost and freedom itself is endangered.

Look at the Alien and Sedition acts, House Unamerican activities committee and the more recent patriot provisions among others to find out more....

[Seshat]

<snip>
Harm or benefit would be a better subject for basing laws. Ie does this law harm or benefit society in general. because if you use morals to base a law on first you have to choose whose morals you are defineing things by.
<snip>
Either you respect them and let them ignore your moral code which means the laws are useless or you crack down and disrespect them basically saying either convert or be punished.
<snip>
While I do not think a meth lab is a good thing to have on a person's property for a whole variety of reasons the concept of using morals to decide what is and is not legal to do on a person's private property is dangerous ground.
<snip>
What goes on on a person's private property should only amount to one thing: Is it done by consenting adults with other consenting adults and does not do actual harm to others?
<snip>
The other part of your comments I find disturbing as well. Its not the burden on the citizenry to not say thigns the government might not like.
<snip>

Well. I totally agree with this post. I would like to extend it to public property as well, though with the caveat that social conventions should have more effect on public property than private.

The separation of Church and State is, IMO, one of the best things humanity has so far done for itself.