It's a Holiday For Some

So I am blogging into the void on President's Day. I really wanted to post a comment today but was almost sidelined by weather in Chicago yesterday. It is extremely liberating to travel without access to a computer and the internet, but when the trip is over, a true child of technology gets antsy. I did finally make it home to my laptop. Beware, mixed issues to follow:

On this day that we celebrate two of our great presidents, let's talk about our Constitution and the right to privacy. There is currently a simmering sex scandal in Hong Kong -- you can find it on MSNBC in the World Blog and elsewhere, I am sure, if you google Hong Kong Sex Scandal. I can't seem to create a link, don't know why, don't know enough to know why. Anyway, the scandal itself is not the issue, my concern is the way that the information was disseminated coupled with the fact that once the information was put out on the internet, there is no way to ever get it back, to undo the wrong and clean up the mess.

There really is no concrete, bright line protection of the "right to privacy" in our Constitution. The right to privacy is generally said to be grounded somewhere in the 9th, the 3rd, the 4th or the 5th Amendments, depending on the issue. I think it is just a basic human right. We possess a right to privacy because we should possess a right to privacy. Plain and simple, easy to understand. Some stuff is just not your business. This fact, however, does not prevent folks from prying into our business, tho, does it? That is why things like sex, marriage, abortion rights, consenting adults stuff, and bedroom stuff are always in the news. Other folk's agendas, eh? People with agendas think that their agenda gives them the right to violate my rights and your rights.

I am not a strict contructionist, I believe the constitution is a living document and was intended to be so by the framers. Those guys were just way to farsighted and smart to believe that the Constitution could stay static. But they could only work with what they knew at the time. Or, perhaps they agreed with me, some stuff is just not your business, and thought that such a basic tenet did not need to be written down and explained to intelligent men and women. But, the agenda folks are a fact of life and we must constantly explain this simple premise to them.

The initial analysis is framed as the "expectation of privacy." Surely you and I have an expectation that information stored on our computer will remain private unless we make the choice to tell others via You Tube or Face Book or however. Now, here is the dilemma, assuming that we do possess this right and we are assuming that to get to the point here, when information that is entitled to be kept private, is somehow broadcast to the entire world, how is the violated privacy right to be vindicated? When or if I take my computer to be repaired, I am at the mercy of the person into whose hands I entrust that information. If that person is a bottom feeder, he or she will be happy to tell the world my secrets. The internet is the great leveler, but once something is posted out into the vastness of cyberspace, it can never, ever be gotten back. Cyberspace is just millions of computers that store information and are connected and can communicate with each other via the "net." The information will remain out there in one form or another or on some server or another for all to see forever. Of course the perniciousness of this ever-living and ever-available information is directly related to the fame of the person whose privacy has been violated. I am a pretty boring person, so nothing about me would ever generate such a brouhaha, anything about me would probably sink into to the morass. So the ever-availability of the information is directly proportional to your fame or celebrity or infamy. The bigger (or smaller -- I'm not sure which) the world gets on the internet, the smaller (sure of this, though) I want to be in my little spot of it. Too much information is not a good thing. Quite frankly, as much as I am in awe of the internet, I am also frightened by the power it has over the simple dissemination of information, be it true, false or somewhere in between.

The internet has no conscience. It is governed only the moral compass of the person using it. Is there some way to reconcile the internet with the right to privacy? I would never advocate any kind of regulation for the internet. Perhaps the penalty for the unauthorized dissemination of private information to the internet should be directly tied to the amount of harm caused and the length of time the information will live on in cyberspace. I don't have any idea how to solve this dilemma, do you?

Be sure and go over to the Scruggs Nation today. I was just catching up on my reading. Seems those lawyers down there are getting pasted for fee deals the same way that some around here are getting pasted for fee deals.

Enjoy your day, sincerely, Always Annoyed (and now scared by the internet).