The mysterious case of Ms. Carrie Prejean

[--Pete]

Hi,

Wire tapping a phone, for example, we can agree should not be a warrant-less event.

I do not need a warrant to wire tap your phone. I can eavesdrop on your wireless phone, your VoIP system, your land lines, whatever. I might be breaking some laws in some of these cases (mostly having to do with trespass), although the only one I'm familiar with covers what I do with the information, but not how I go about getting it. You see, you are mixing what government can do and what individuals can do. Your original subject was not about government intrusion, but about media and individual intrusion -- two very different things.

I'm not calling for anything like a ban on the means, just an understanding of what is a violation of privacy, which could be considered illegal and the basis for civil or criminal action against the violator.

Privacy protection for public actions is what you are arguing for. Sorry, but that seems quixotic. You are already protected in your house, on your property, and so forth by laws covering trespass, etc.

I agree that there needs to be a loose international governance organization, which sets some minimal rules and has the means to enforce them.

My rules or yours? Yours when you were a young single guy or yours now that you'd like society's help in raising your kids? The rules based on Christian morality, or those of a more enlightened group? And in a world where we cannot even agree that rapist and murderers should be available for justice across borders, you expect some agreement and enforcement on Internet privacy violations? Extradition for some kid that photoshops your head onto some porn star's body?

My recent work for colleges and universities was enlightening. All student papers are required to be submitted electronically, and they are automatically scanned against a huge internet library of other papers and sources for plagiarism. It is an interesting technology, because the entire source is not stored, just its uniquely generated digital hash and the source title.

Right. So what? You originally said " am also hopeful that new document technology will enable the permanent embedding of authorship (i.e. electronic signature on steroids) to all electronic documents which would allow anyone to easily determine the original source and intent of electronic content.". Then you go on to show that there is technology available to determine when a document's source is other than claimed. But these are two different issues. The ability to determine if a document is plagiarized does not give you the ability to determine who generated the original -- it could very well be that most prolific of authors, Mr. Anon.

Mostly, because even if I don't have something to hide, hiding is my civil prerogative and I should have some say in how "I" am used.

You have some protection from invasion of privacy by the government. You do not have the same protection from the media. And you most certainly don't have any protection from cell phone cameras (not to mention traffic cams, ATM cams, etc.) when you are out in public. That's sort of the definition of 'public', you know -- pretty much the opposite of 'private'.

--Pete