It's not about public information

[wayfriend]

Consider the following hypothetical situations.

I want to discuss what makes them ethically, morally, legally, and politically the same, or different.

- - - - - - - - -

1.
Cail sees Jennifer Conelly at the mall. He writes a note about it on Kevin's Watch, and it says what mall he saw her at, and what time. Everyone is impressed.

2.
Joe follows Jacob around everywhere he goes, writing down time and places. Each night, he updates his blog with this information. It now has thousands of entries, tracking everything Jacob did for three years.

3.
Bubba lives in a small town, and hates Jews. There's one male Jew, Saul, who recently moved into town, and he's the only one in that town. Bubba is real mad now. So he and his buddies trade off watching for Saul all over town. They have a website called "Where's the Jew At Now", and they update it many times a day to report where "The Jew" is at any given moment, and where he may be heading. There are LOTS of hits on this site.

4.
Ming is from China. He is a spy. He came to America on a legitimate work visa. People from China call him and give him names of people in his town. Ming finds those people and follows them around town with a GPS receiver. He reports his information back to China.

5.
Al is from nation on the US list of sponsors of terror. He came to the US as a tourist. He goes to NYC and takes pictures of big, crowded buildings. He records the times of day when they are the most full of people. He sends this information back to people in his country; they are a known terrorist organization.

- - - - - - - - -

What is the same in all of these cases (or so, at least, I have tried to make the same) is that they all involve collecting public information, and re-reporting the same public information.

And yet some of these are "okay" (or so I hope we can agree) and some of these are "bad" (or so I hope we can agree). We may disagree about which ones are which.

But if that's so, then this means that there is another element at work. There is some other attribute, other than fair use of public information, which is used to determine right or wrong.

Is it an issue of privacy?

Is it an issue of intent? And is it fair if it is?

Is it something else?

What is it? What makes us respond to these situations so differently when they are constructed from the same fundamental actions? And is it okay that we do that?

I'm curious.

[dlbpharmd]

Hmmmm - I'm not sure that I'm going to answer these the way that you intended, but here goes:

1. Cail seeing a celebrity and talking about it his friends is not an invasion of the celebrity's privacy. It's part of being a celebrity, it comes with the territory.

2. This is a definite invasion of Jacob's privacy.

3. This is an invasion of Saul's privacy, and also a violation of his civil rights.

4. Ming is a foreign spy, clearly illegal activity. The FBI would be interested to know about him.

5. Same as #4.

[wayfriend]

DLB - but WHY is one an invasion of privacy and not others? WHY is one a violation of civil rights and not others? WHY is one illegal espionage and not others?

As far as I designed these, they are all variations of the same thing: seeing someone in a public place, and reporting it somewhere. Why are they so different legally and ethically?

[dlbpharmd]

I'll do my best:

1. Again, being a celebrity means that you're going to be recognized. Cail could even take a picture of Connelly if he wanted to. She's out in the public, she's going to be seen. Cail would probably talk about it for a few days, but after that, he'd talk about other things. (Until someone starts a thread like the one we had a while back, about celebrities seen or met in person.)

2. To me, this is a different situation from #1. Jacob is not a celebrity, he's an average person, and for some reason Joe stalks him, and records his whereabouts and activities. I'm not certain, but this seems actionable from a legal standpoint.

3. Again, slightly different from #1 and #2, this time with a racial edge. Saul's life may be in danger (although that's not implicit in your scenario.)

4. Ming is an agent of a foreign government with which the US is not allied. Although there's nothing in your scenario that implies any national security risk, why is he following people and reporting on their whereabouts?

5. Al is a terrorist, and his actions represent a national security risk.

[wayfriend]

I'm not saying the following to argue, I'm just trying to dive deeper by starting with your example and seeing what the conclusion is.

1.
So "celebrity-ness" is a factor when it comes to disclosing public information about someone? Celebrities forfeit certain rights?

What if Cail had seen Lucimay at the mall, and wrote about that. Is that different then? If that's okay too, maybe celebritiness is a red herring.

2.
So when something starts to look like "stalking", it becomes wrong. But what consititutes "stalking"? Is actively seeking out the public information about someone? Does doing it repeatedly make it stalking? If Joe had kept the information to himself, would it be stalking still?

Is it the kind of information (in this case, whereabouts) that makes it stalking? Is it the method (in this case, following) that makes it stalking? If yes to either, what other kinds of information, or other methods, would then NOT be stalking?

3.
I could see Bubba defending himself, in that he's not responsible for what anyone does with the information on his website. And his freedom of speech rights allows him to be as anti-semitic as he wants to on his website.

So what, specifically, did he do wrong? Do we judge him by what we THINK his intentions MIGHT BE?

4. 5.
If there's nothing private or sensitive in the information, why are we worried about it? Note that, like Bubba, we don't have any clue as to what it is actually used for. We're just suspicious.

- - - - - -

All of which comes down to: are some uses of "public information" not okay?

If I get some more responses, I'm going to add a number 6 to this list. But I want to see what people thought before getting all agenda-ized about that topic.

[Warmark]

I think the difference between 1 & 2 is that there is intent to follow/know the where-abouts in senario 2, whereas in senario 1 it is a chance meeting.

[Holsety]

Before I start, let me say this is a good topic idea so thanks for coming up with it.

I think the difference between 1 & 2 is that there is intent to follow/know the where-abouts in senario 2, whereas in senario 1 it is a chance meeting.

There is also a repetition of the activity; if Cail (it's so mean to use people from the board XD) had chance sightings of a celeb every other day, there is good cause to be suspicious. I think that in the case of number 2, it would not be good reason to arrest the person (there should really be an abrev for that...is there?). Perhaps it would be enough cause for a judge to order the the stalker to stay a certain distance from the 'stalkee' (hehe).

For number 3...well, again, I don't know about anything beyond a restraining order (That's the term! Yay self!). Hate sites are legal.

Stopping them from following the guy around is a maybe. Stopping people from hating someone, or even discussing that hatred, is stepping on their right to free speech in my mind.

If anything, I find #2 more troubling. The publicity of the third situation ameliorates the danger somewhat.

Ming is from China. He is a spy. He came to America on a legitimate work visa. People from China call him and give him names of people in his town. Ming finds those people and follows them around town with a GPS receiver. He reports his information back to China.

I'm afraid this situation isn't quite possible. Considering this situation, it is quite clear he obtained the visa under false pretenses, and it would be revoked. Therefore his actions are illegal, and immoral because he concealed his reporting of public information from us. I suppose I would argue that concealing one's activities makes them worse (so if the guy in number 2 was recording things in a notebook it'd be more wrong/illegal).

Al is from nation on the US list of sponsors of terror. He came to the US as a tourist. He goes to NYC and takes pictures of big, crowded buildings. He records the times of day when they are the most full of people. He sends this information back to people in his country; they are a known terrorist organization.

Oh come on, what kind of terrorist is named Al? He's clearly innocent...unless it's short for allah or al-jazeera or al qaeda or al-hashid or something like that.

I would argue this is where the patriot act plays a part, and (for once) not a part I disagree with. The key here is discretion. Personally, I feel the discretion which the USA makes is sometimes an overreaction, sometimes nowhere near enough. In this case, looking into this guy's background; if someone is sending things to a terrorist organization, they are aiding that organization, even if the information itself is free for the public. It's not his obtaining the information; it's the fact that he intentionally uses it to help a terrorist group.

I propose that you change this situation somewhat to make it more difficult to address. He's not sending the pics and info into the terrorist organization; he's posting it on a blog which just so happens to express sympathies with terrorists and anti-american sentiments.

As it is, he is again doing things which clearly proves he's attempting to conceal his actions and pretend he's just a tourist.

[wayfriend]

I think the difference between 1 & 2 is that there is intent to follow/know the where-abouts in senario 2, whereas in senario 1 it is a chance meeting.

Thanks Warmark, your getting my gist.

What is the principal which we apply that says one is okay, one is not?

You say it is something to do with whether or not they try to know the information. Not sure I agree, but this is what I'm going after - the underlying principal which makes them different.

There is also a repetition of the activity;

Yes, I think this is a principal that applies. It's one thing to do it once; it's quite another thing (in principal) to COLLECT it. Probably this is similar to Warmarks comment.

I'm afraid this situation isn't quite possible. Considering this situation, it is quite clear he obtained the visa under false pretenses, and it would be revoked.

Okay, a flaw in my hypothetical situation; ignore it, and concentrate on why this kind of information gathering is wronger, or not, than others.

If I see a principal in what you said, tho, its that there's something wrong with collecting public information, which ANYONE CAN GET by definition, and giving it to someone else, in secret. In other words, it's the principal of knowing/not knowing who is using the information. Right? Secrecy implies guilt; openness implies legality and legitimacy.

I propose that you change this situation somewhat to make it more difficult to address

Don't want to. It would be the same as the bubba case, essentially. I want this one to be CONSIDERED a notch or two worse. (Although, in essence, all the actions in all the cases are EXACTLY the same at the core - taking information that's freely and publically available, and distributing it.)

[Cail]

It's been widely accepted that celebrities have basically abdicated their privacy due to their fame, so #1 is OK.

#2 is only an issue if the person being blogged about has a problem with it. There are anti-stalker laws and restraining orders to deal with this.

Ditto #3, but you could probably add in the hate crime laws as well.

#4 is an issue due to what DLB said, in the country under false pretenses, guess what, any activity is under scrutiny.

#5 I agree with Holsety. This is exactly what the Patriot act is for.

Really good topic Wayfriend. It's making me really think here. I wanna see how I feel about this in the morning.

[taraswizard]

Intent is the primary issue, and why is not intent fair issue for consideration. Consider in 2003 I was involved in a parking lot fender bender, and my car ended up being totaled; however, since the lady that I had the accident with did not have a malicious intent towards me or my vehicle, I received no other compensation or remedy besides the blue book value of my car. If the lady had had malicious intent against me or my property, well given the same results the remedies would have been potentially much different. Intent is always a key point of analysis.

BTW, folks the scenario #5 has nothing to do with the Patriot Act. Sorry I need to burst your bubbles.

[Holsety]

BTW, folks the scenario #5 has nothing to do with the Patriot Act. Sorry I need to burst your bubbles.[/quote]
Wouldn't it let the gov't check up on him for what I assume you agree is a suspicious background.

As for intent, note that WF has mostly left it out of these situations. So, when intent is not able to be determined for certain, what is your take on these situations?

[Avatar]

Agree with Taras. (Nice to see you here. ) Intent is the over-riding concern. There is no intent to harm in either variation of #1.

It's not whether they try to know it, it's what they intend doing with it. And the potential for harm that arises from that intent.

--A

[Plissken]

6) Alberto believes that Habeas Corpus isn't guaranteed by the Constitution. He also believes that the Geneva Conventions are outdated, and that Civil Liberties are quaint. He also happens to have the power of a "robust Executive Authority" at his back when he determines that's it's okay to wiretap Quakers...

[Avatar]

It's the golden rule man...them as has the gold makes the rules.

--A

[Cail]

Hate to burst your bubble, but The Patriot Act was designed for scenarios identical to #5.

Intent is important, and I believe that the law allows for that in each of Wayfriend's 5 questions (which is why I stuck to the legal aspects in my response).

[taraswizard]

1)Regarding intent. Using the initial descpriptions, and yes they do not explicitly state the intent of the persons involved; IMO, a reasonable person could reasonably conclude the intent in each case. (regarding #4 and #5, Ming is declared as a spy and the other is stated to be an operative of a terrorist organization). Another example, for decades the city rooms of local newspapers and newsrooms of TV stations have been equipped with police scanners, and that traffic is monitored to get story leads for the news gathering personnel. However, if one listens in to police scanner messages in the furtherance of criminality, in every state I know of that's a crime.

2) My comments regarding the Patriot act not applying. The activities, along with their implied intentions, described in scenarios #4 and #5 were espionage activities and illegal before the passage of the Patriot Act and before Sept. 11, 2001.

[Cail]

2.
Joe follows Jacob around everywhere he goes, writing down time and places. Each night, he updates his blog with this information. It now has thousands of entries, tracking everything Jacob did for three years.

There is nothing here about intent. For all we know, Joe and Jacob are best friends, and the blog is a big joke between them.

Now, if Jacob is pissed off about the blog, he has legal recourse to prevent Joe from stalking him.

The Patriot Act has made it much easier to curb (and surveil) activities like #5, but yes, that activity was illegal prior to 2001.

[Trapper]

#4 is an issue due to what DLB said, in the country under false pretenses, guess what, any activity is under scrutiny.

Ming himself was merely scrutinising...

These baseless allegations that Ming was a spy are imperialist running-dog propaganda.

He's in the country on a legitimate work-visa, presumably doing legitimate work.

Seriously, how do we know that Ming was a spy any more than the government of Niger knew that Valerie Plame was? Who's decided that (besides Wayfriend, obviously )?

Can't really send him to Gitmo and waterboard him (to be on the safe side), so it's probably best to just contact the Chinese government and covertly arrange to swap him with John Smith from Arkansas, who was recently "caught" doing exactly the same thing in Shanghai.

[Zarathustra]

I don't see what the quandary is. There lots of perfectly legal things you can do in isolation or in moderation, but when you do them in conjunction with other facts/contexts/actions/people, they constitute "probable cause."

For instance, it's okay to buy fertilizer. Farmers do it all the time. But if you're not a farmer, but rather an immigrant from a known terrorist supporting country who has a chemistry degree and the knowledge to turn feritlizer into a car bomb, well then, you've got yourself a whopping bit of probable cause. This is really not that difficult.

Just because some actions are legal doesn't mean police should play stupid and pretend that they are harmless.

On the other hand, this doesn't mean we should lock up everyone behaving suspiciously. But it does mean that you question them, and watch them until you have enough proof that they are conspiring to commit a crime. Which IS a crime.

[Cail]

Seriously, how do we know that Ming was a spy any more than the government of Niger knew that Valerie Plame was? Who's decided that (besides Wayfriend, obviously

The fact that Ming is a spy has already been revealed. Given the information we have, what then?