[thegrimmest]

I'm not sure I agree - if you have the right to observe, listen and record using your meat implements (eyes, ears, brain), then you should have the right to do so using a digital augmentation of the same (cameras, microphones, storage).

[arrrg]

Why? Can you explain why the two should be treated the same?

That‘s not at all the case in many other legal contexts.

[thegrimmest]

Because there is no clear distinction between the two. You're certainly entitled to listen with your ears and write things down aren't you? Can you use a hearing aid to help you listen? What about binoculars to help you see?

Clearly it's impolite to peer into your neighbours windows with binoculars, and gossip about all the conversations you overhear with your hearing aids, but you've got the right to do so, don't you?

What about observing your neighbours through a peep hole in your door (or wall)? What about setting up a camera instead of a peep hole? And what if you want to see the camera feed from your phone? Reference it for later? Where is the line? All of these, including pens and paper, are technological augmentations to our innate capabilities. I'm not against banning them per se, I'd just like a clear idea of why we ban some and not others.

[jerry1979]

> I'd just like a clear idea of why we ban some and not others.

Can you think of any reasons why we would want to ban some and not others? It reminds a bit of something that Emma Goldman might say: people have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.

[thegrimmest]

I can't think of any deontological reasons, no. It seems to me that people are just more apprehensive of the more recent innovations. I can point you to writings in the past advising what to avoid writing down. This taboo has clearly shifted.

Say in 1000 years from now everyone has cameras and storage media implanted in their persons, I suspect the public consciousness surrounding what is and isn't expected to be recorded would change. I don't however think that your fundamental liberty as a human being should depend on the public consciousness, but rather be derived from principles/axioms.

[jerry1979]

Pardon my ignorance, but I thought deontology evaluates actions by measuring them against a set of rules. I find it hard to believe that you can't imagine any rules that would prohibit filming someone else's home.

[ironlake]

And infringing on this imagined-from-first-principles right would cause serious repercussions. No regulation could ever be as beneficial as losing this imagined-from-first-principles right. We must let corporations and the police state that serve them have and use this data.

[thegrimmest]

It's not imagined-from-first-principles, it's in fact attempting to define the very axioms that ought to constrain law in the first place. What does it mean to be "free" do something?

If you avoid this question, you can justify just about any tyranny so long as it can be argued to be "beneficial" (spoiler alert: this is how the worst atrocities in history have been justified). In other words, the ends don't justify the means.