This is fairly tangential, not terribly relevant to the industry, but hey,
since this list is a ghost town lately, why not.=20=20
1) California (and by proxy, its residents) is strange.
2) It's no longer feasible to expect ANY privacy, anywhere, period. If
someone wants information about you, information that you think is private,
chances are, it's not. This is not rocket science. Google.com, while a
useful search engine, provides unprecedented access to previously
unavailable, or at best, very difficult information to get about each and
every person. Do a Google search of your own name, I am sure you will be
astonished if not concerned. And by the way, those of you that for legal or
other reasons, attach a long paragraph at the end of your email messages
that purport to state something like "this email message is only intended
for Mr. So & So, delete, remove, etc. etc. if you are not the intended
recipient...blah blah blah". Quite it, please. The 3-4 routers, servers and
other minor pit stops your emails make along the internet are vulnerable to
bad people, and those bad people are not going to bother with your paper
tigers.
3) As the recent case by the Supreme Court (Lawrence v Texas), asserts,
there's still a lot of confusion about where the line of privacy is drawn.
4) Regarding your P.S. point below, that's called competitive intelligence,
it happens every day.=20
5) No real point to any of this really.
Cheers.
Anthony
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harsh Prakash [mailto:hvp@regiononepdc.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 1:37 PM
> To: gislist@geocomm.com
> Subject: Re: GISList: Isn't she supposed to be an environmental
>=20
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> A "reasonable expectation of privacy" is an excepted argument
> (it is used esp. w.r.t. fourth amendment cases, and=20
> sometimes, such cases have been triggered even when the=20
> observation vehicle is at a position where it has the right to be).
>=20
> Very crudely put, if a person completely owns a closed
> dwelling and takes adequate precautions to keep her bedroom=20
> private, then she creates a "reasonable expectation of=20
> privacy" that the "society is willing to accept". In such a=20
> case, if someone uses hi-tech equipments to penetrate and=20
> scan the inside details of her bedroom (certainly not the=20
> case here) without explicit permission or authorization, then=20
> he takes away something from her "bundle of rights" (note=20
> that if a person buys an open house, say, in the center of=20
> Times Square, NYC, then he may not claim a "reasonable=20
> expectation of privacy" for obvious reasons).
>=20
> > Not an issue, because if it is viewable from a public space
> it is, by
> > definition, not private.
> ...Interesting argument. But there may be more to it- for
> one, we cannot be expected to completely cover our houses.=20
> The key here may be just how much private details do the=20
> photographs reveal, details that the property owner took=20
> pains to hide- sensitive details that were later openly distributed.=20
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> Since the focus was on the coastline, the photographer has
> little to worry about and the case may just get thrown out.
>=20
> Hopefully, map-making would enjoy a "good-intent" protection.
> However, not knowing all the facts and arguments, I certainly=20
> can NOT claim how well the arguments apply to such cases.=20
> These are just some general questions to inform our discussion.
>=20
> Harsh
> PS: Then again, just how relevant are the intimate details of
> someone's house, if there were any, to a coastline monitoring=20
> project? And what if, say a fishing business along the coast,=20
> claims that its trade-secrets get revealed by such=20
> photographs, photographs which can then be used by competing=20
> businesses?
>=20
> PPS: "...expectation of privacy is either inherently
> reasonable or it is inherently unreasonable" (O' Conner).
>=20
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>=20
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>=20
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