Supreme Court Justice Scalia Given Lesson In Internet Privacy
from the not-an-issue? dept
BoingBoing points us to an interesting story involving Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who apparently gave a recent talk questioning the need to protect privacy online. That caught the attention of Joel Reidenberg, a law professor at Fordham, who teaches an Information Privacy Law class. As part of that class he includes an assignment for the class to try to dig up information on someone online, in order to prove how much information is out there. Last year, he chose himself. This year, given Scalia's comments, he had the class put together a dossier on Scalia, which was not released publicly, but did include a bunch of private info about Scalia that was dug up online. Apparently Scalia was not amused, saying:I stand by my remark at the Institute of American and Talmudic Law conference that it is silly to think that every single datum about my life is private. I was referring, of course, to whether every single datum about my life deserves privacy protection in law.Now, to be fair, Scalia does have a point that not every single datum about anyone's life should be considered private. But it's equally silly to lash out and call the decision to give the assignment "abominably poor judgment." That seems like Scalia is suggesting security through obscurity is reasonable, and exposing why it's not is poor judgment. It's hard to see how that makes sense.
It is not a rare phenomenon that what is legal may also be quite irresponsible. That appears in the First Amendment context all the time. What can be said often should not be said. Prof. Reidenberg's exercise is an example of perfectly legal, abominably poor judgment. Since he was not teaching a course in judgment, I presume he felt no responsibility to display any.
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Filed Under: antonin scalia, internet, privacy, supreme court
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Obscurity
It was reasonable, until we got search engines. That changed everything.
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You missed the point
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Re: You missed the point
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Re: You missed the point
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Typical Response
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Re: You missed the point
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Here's the thing
THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR KEEPING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION SAFE LIES
100%
SOLELY
WITH........
YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Re: Here's the thing
However, if someone finds out your information, and you simply don't want them to know.....
too fucking bad.
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Re: Re: Here's the thing
Do you have a SS#? Possibly a DL? Maybe even Health Ins ...
Certainly it would your own damn fault when (not if) this info is freely available on the tubes. We dont need no stinkin laws to go after the miscreants, it's your own damn fault if you let them get away with this.
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Re: Here's the thing
Oh but you say 'you can just choose a different insurance company if you do not like their privacy policies'... yes, after the fact when you have already submitted private information to them and find that they decided to change their policies and release all your information. Without law on your side, there is nothing to prevent them from taking any self-serving action against your privacy.
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Re: Re: Here's the thing
If you don't put a fence in around your property, don't go pissing and moaning about it when the Google car comes around, or the neighbors call the police because you were lounging in a bathrobe, reading a paper on the porch while their children play outside. (They would have to be really annoying neighbors..)
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Prof Reidenberg was wrong
On the other hand, I would not want to make what he did illegal.
Which, basically, is Scallia's point.
Do we want to live in a society where everything that is wrong is illegal? Or actually worse, where everything legal is acceptable?
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Re: Prof Reidenberg was wrong
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Re: Prof Reidenberg was wrong
"Do we want to live in a society where everything that is wrong is illegal? Or actually worse, where everything legal is acceptable?"
Absolutely not. This kind of legislation would be particularly injurious to public exposure of governmental wrong doing. It would ultimately become illegal to blow the whistle.
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I'm confused
I am sorry if that is confusing to you, but it is perfectly rational to me.
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Re: I'm confused
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Re: I'm confused
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Re: I'm confused
So who invaded his privacy?
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Scalia is a hypocrite
First, this is not invasion of privacy: they used available tools to find information out in the wild. Unless they hacked a few systems, there was nothing either illegal nor morally reprehensible about the assignment. Anyone saying otherwise is pushing an agenda of their own.
Second, this is merely another example of Scalia being hoisted on his own petard. He claims to be a "strict constitutionalist" and yet conveniently ignored the "well-regulated militia" aspect of the 2nd amendment during the recent gun control deliberations.
I'd be more pleased with the professor's action if I felt Scalia'd actually learn from the experience but everything we've seen from the man, to date, indicates that's a vain hope.
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What institute again?
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Re: What institute again?
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Re: Re: What institute again?
Really? When half the House and Senate stand up to be recognized at the AIPAC conference? When the Vice-President gives a keynote speech? When half the members of the previous administration, and several members of this one, are dual citizens? When an elected representative is caught on tape offering to interfere with an espionage investigation in return for personal preferment, and not only gets away with it, but gets a standing fucking ovation from AIPAC? You've got to be blind not to know what's going on in the country, or a partisan AC to deny it. Scalia is of course at liberty to attend any kind of conference he wishes, but since he is a public official, and since what he says on the record is likely to be taken as nascent judicial policy, the context in which he chooses to speak is significant. I would have said much the same thing had he made his remarks at a 700 Club event, but that it was a Talmudic conference, taken with everything else, makes it just that much more egregious.
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Institute of American and Talmudic Law
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"Now, no matter what you think of illegal immigrants and how they should be dealt with, we should all be concerned when the government is stretching the intention of a law beyond its clearly stated purpose... and the Supreme Court seems to agree."
I think the judge's comments jive quite well with your thoughts on not stretching the intention of law.
The SCOTUS doesn't write the laws, just interprets them. While there are many things that are not against the law, they can still be distasteful to the vast majority of others and I think this exercise is one of them. Judges don't write the laws and really should not be stretching the current law to fit new circumstances or political wishes. Activist judges actually go against the constitution. If a political party wants a law, man up and work to pass the law, don't circumvent our constitution by going around the process to push your agenda.
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"That is well established. He rails -- as the rest of the Right does -- against "activist judges" and then proceeds to be just that."
Ummm, no, you are wrong. Did he order the professor to jail? Did he file a lawsuit? No, he didn't. So your statement is completely wrong. Maybe you should look at the facts instead of just spouting your agenda.
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Re:
He's not talking about this case specifically; he's talking about Scalia's hypocrisy regarding "activist judges" in general. Have a read of Boyle v. United Technologies Corp, 487 U.S. 500 (1988) and see for yourself.
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It was a training exercise with the pilots trying to land the helicopter on a dark carrier at night. The pilots were using night vision goggles, which can really screw with your depth perception. The pilots thought they were landing on the carrier but instead ended up putting down in the ocean. Obviouisly the co pilot couldn't get out because his emergency exit door opened out (the cause of the lawsuit) The others were able to get out of the helicopter but drowned because they didn't get their packs off and they sank to the bottom of the ocean.
I wouldn't call this judgment to be the act of an "activist judge"
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Re:
Are you kidding me? Scalia invented a standard of tort immunity for federal contractors where it never existed. In fact, the proposal for such immunity was before Congress for a long time, and they chose not to enact it. So, in spite of no statute authorizing immunity from state tort claims and a clear statement from Congress that it did not want to impose such immunity, Scalia decided to create such a standard anyways. As a result, Boyle's family is S.O.L. and the defective helicopter designer gets off scott-free. How is that not "activist?"
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Hard to see how that makes sense.
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