Check out Sonia Katyal's insightful article on how the biggest threat to privacy rights in the world today stems from the enforcement of overly restrictive intellectual property laws.
Now check out the latest startling developments in that war.
This is an extension of a mind-boggling phenomenon that I witnessed in law school (1996-99). During lectures on Constitutional Law and Evidence, many liberal leaning students would voice objections about invasive surveillance techniques used to fight even the most violent of crimes within poor neighborhoods prone to criminal activities. They claimed that the ends of having less crime did not outweigh the risks of having an all-out police state a la Orwell's 1984.
Yet when these same exact students spoke up in classes for Copyright or Entertainment Law,
there was no amount of privacy or civil liberties that they wouldn't gladly ignore in order to protect the business model of the media companies that they were currently interning at in their legal affairs department.
Question, assuming that there could be reasonable disagreement in terms of balancing interests of privacy vs. law-and-order. What is the first thing that you would think police would use cameras to deter:
A. Murders
B. Rapes
C. Armed Robbery
D. Traffic Infractions
E. Copyright Protections
If you picked D & E, give yourself a prize. That is how sick the priorities of our current legal culture have become.
The priorities of the LAPD are now dictated by big media interests with loads of cash and influence to throw around, just like a bottom-feeding lobbyist in Washington.
[Disclosure # 1: I myself have bought an "unauthorized" copy of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 from the fashion district in downtown L.A. I proudly did it in order to be able to debate the nuances of the film without lining Moore's pockets with more cash. Besides, he said he didn't really mind my doing this.]
[Disclosure # 2: I have long maintained that there is no Constitutional "right of privacy" in any sense of the term except for the specific enumerated rights found in the text. However, I think that some specific and limited forms of privacy rights can be agreed upon by states and passes as legislative policies and laws as long as they are strictly construed and do not conflict with First Amendment freedoms. I don't see any conflict with holding this view and maintaining a stance against police security cameras stationed for the express purpose of enforcing copyright regimens. If someone feels otherwise, I'd be glad to hear their arguments. And yes, I realize that this isn't technically a "privacy" issue since the transactions the cameras are capturing are done in plain view on the public street. But we are talking about privacy in the larger Orwellian "Big Brother" sense here - not the "hidden cameras in the bathroom" sense. One can different views of each notion of privacy in attempting to balance out Free Speech rights and the public good.]
Posted by Justin Levine at May 31, 2005 06:20 PM | TrackBack