People say it all the time. It's the go-to retort whenever anyone brings up the fact that new technologies allow criminals to coordinate and plot in new ways. "Why do we need new laws to fight Al Qaeda?"
> That is, you are not accounting for new technology when you make such silly comparisons between addresses scrawled on postal mail envelopes 100+ years ago and today's sophisticated electronic communications intercept and analysis capabilities.
It's not a silly comparison. The internet may not have existed 100+ years ago, but people did, and the mechanics of people are remarkably stable. The underlying dynamic: certain information not falling within the scope of privacy rights because its made plainly visible, is mechanically similar whether you're talking about addresses scrolled on postal envelopes or e-mail addresses in an SMTP header.
> here should be no such term in this "debate", because per the Constitution, privacy should be the default.
The word "privacy" does not appear in the Constitution. The word "private" appears just once (in the phrase "private property"). The 4th amendment has certain guarantees that protect certain kinds of privacy,[1] but not the broad guarantee of "privacy" that you imply. Specifically, the 4th amendment protects your house and your person from unreasonable searches. It's not a blanket right of privacy that protects your communications, even in contexts where those communications are disclosed to numerous third parties.
[1] But the 4th amendment need not be interpreted in terms of a broader concept of "privacy" at all.
Perhaps you can stick to what the real people to whom you are replying here are actually saying vs. what those imaginary people are saying somewhere in the universe. That was probably the most obvious straw man I have ever seen on HN and definitely the first admission of having constructed one.
>The mechanics of peope are remarkably stable...the underlying dynamic...mechanically similar...
No. None of that. I mean those words really sound great when strung together that way, but you've just repeated yourself and it is no more true now than before. You have already acknowledged that technology has changed, but you don't want to acknowledge that so called "keeping pace" by the government can and does amount to additional privacy intrusions. You just offer up a blanket, "oh, it's all the same", as if sniffing every packet of every electronic communication would be the same as human beings reading addresses on postal envelopes. Sorry. Still silly, no matter how many action-packed adverbs you throw in.
Of course, your tutorial on how infrequently the actual word "privacy" appears in the Constitution is silly as well. Obviously, much of what the Constitution expresses in so many ways with regard to protection from the government rolls up under "privacy". That you are arguing the privacy word count is spurious. Citizens simply cannot have protection from the government or liberty itself without privacy, including the right to communicate with other private citizens without having virtually any or all such communications intercepted and analyzed by the government. How you can divorce such basic, common sense tenets from the very spirit of the Constitution is remarkable.
But, I guess when it became clear that enhanced capabilities do amount to a further intrusion on privacy, your only recourse was to redefine privacy and the Constitution itself. It is amazing watching you contort and move the goal posts, as much as it is a frank admission that your position is not tenable.
I seldom agree with the usual rayiner posts, but at least the arguments are somewhat cogent. The rayiner posts on this thread, however, make me wonder if the "regular" rayiner is on vacation and someone else is running the "privacy-destruction advocate" account.
People say it all the time. It's the go-to retort whenever anyone brings up the fact that new technologies allow criminals to coordinate and plot in new ways. "Why do we need new laws to fight Al Qaeda?"
> That is, you are not accounting for new technology when you make such silly comparisons between addresses scrawled on postal mail envelopes 100+ years ago and today's sophisticated electronic communications intercept and analysis capabilities.
It's not a silly comparison. The internet may not have existed 100+ years ago, but people did, and the mechanics of people are remarkably stable. The underlying dynamic: certain information not falling within the scope of privacy rights because its made plainly visible, is mechanically similar whether you're talking about addresses scrolled on postal envelopes or e-mail addresses in an SMTP header.
> here should be no such term in this "debate", because per the Constitution, privacy should be the default.
The word "privacy" does not appear in the Constitution. The word "private" appears just once (in the phrase "private property"). The 4th amendment has certain guarantees that protect certain kinds of privacy,[1] but not the broad guarantee of "privacy" that you imply. Specifically, the 4th amendment protects your house and your person from unreasonable searches. It's not a blanket right of privacy that protects your communications, even in contexts where those communications are disclosed to numerous third parties.
[1] But the 4th amendment need not be interpreted in terms of a broader concept of "privacy" at all.