[ameister14]

>Do Americans not have an expectation of privacy even when talking in public, based on the expectations of the individuals engaged in speech?

No, they don't, because that would not be a reasonable expectation.

>The problem in America is not the speech part, but rather that the logic and reason itself has been inverted and perverted by sophists and abusive manipulators over the decades, which have turned everything upside down, including the definitions of “reasonable”, “public”, and “private”, i.e., the core logic of the matter. . . None of the founders of America and the writers of the Constitution would recognize any of these current assumptions built into definitive and even the words they wrote

I'm pretty sure the founders of The United States and the writers of the Constitution would understand that speaking at a restaurant (in their day, more likely in a public house) with friends is public.

Ben Franklin was a newspaper-man. You think he didn't deal with things overheard and published? These people were revolutionaries - successful revolutionaries generally know that their acts can be witnessed if not done in private spaces.

>let alone all the illogical and lazy cruft that has been added after the twelfth amendment

Weird cut-off, friend. To me, some of the illogical and lazy cruft was added prior to that in order to justify owning other people.

[godelski]

>> Do Americans not have an expectation of privacy even when talking in public, based on the expectations of the individuals engaged in speech?

> No, they don't, because that would not be a reasonable expectation.

If you asked someone before 2000, do you think their answer would be different?

Would setting/context change that? i.e. a person talking to their friend on the street vs giving a speech at a protest/demonstration?

I think before you call reference to Ben Franklin, you have to also consider the differences in settings between today and then. A lot has changed and the discourse around the subject is not properly taking this into account, and often not even acknowledging the existence of change in the first place. "Reasonable expectation" is deeply contingent upon the availability, accessibility, and utility. This cannot be an ignored part of the conversation.

[ameister14]

>If you asked someone before 2000, do you think their answer would be different

No, I don't. I do not think reasonable people ever had an expectation of privacy while in public, especially when they are interacting with other people/strangers.

>Would setting/context change that? i.e. a person talking to their friend on the street vs giving a speech at a protest/demonstration?

Setting and context could change the expectation of privacy, sure - if you're in a private place, it's different from being in public.

>I think before you call reference to Ben Franklin, you have to also consider the differences in settings between today and then. A lot has changed and the discourse around the subject is not properly taking this into account, and often not even acknowledging the existence of change in the first place.

Are you saying people have more of an expectation of privacy now? I thought your whole argument went the other way.

[godelski]

> No, I don't. I do not think reasonable people ever had an expectation of privacy while in public, especially when they are interacting with other people/strangers.

Yeah, I don't buy that. Let me be quite specific: do you think someone would answer the following question differently "what is the likelihood that you will be on camera if you walk to the library and back?" I absolutely guarantee the numbers will change and approach 0 pretty rapidly. This is not just a psychological question (which does matter too btw) but a technological one. Clearly Ben Franklin would have answered that he would not expect such a thing despite being a person of high fame in his time.

> Setting and context could change the expectation of privacy, sure - if you're in a private place, it's different from being in public.

Except that this isn't a binary option. A public bathroom is a public space yet I think most people would be hard pressed to argue that you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy there, especially in a stall. In fact, this is even legally codified. There's a spectrum of private-public and it is not clean cut. What I've suggested above is that there are variables you aren't considering. A person's model on the expectation of privacy is dependent not just on their condition of public/private property, but also on their expectation of people having recording devices, the expectation of that use, the expectation of ability to notice them, as well as other more refined setting attributes like doors, locks, and other such things. It is far more nuanced than "inside vs outside." As another clear example, I have a higher expectation of privacy being in the middle of a national forest than if I lived in a apartment on the first floor in a big city. Obviously there are more conditions and we can't have a reasonable conversation without recognizing this.

> Are you saying people have more of an expectation of privacy now?

Obviously not. Reread. "availability, accessibility, and utility" is referring to recording devices and the ability to search through them. Additionally, your analogy doesn't even make sense since a lot of investigative journalism does "spy" on people in private settings (e.g. source information from a dissenting party about a conversation that happened in a private room on private property). Again, way more nuanced than you are giving credit for.

[ameister14]

>Yeah, I don't buy that. Let me be quite specific: do you think someone would answer the following question differently "what is the likelihood that you will be on camera if you walk to the library and back?"

They'd probably answer that differently, same as if you asked them about someone filming them on their cell phone or any other technological change. That doesn't have much to do with your earlier question, though.

> There's a spectrum of private-public and it is not clean cut.

Sure, there is a spectrum, based on community norms. There is a degree of privacy you expect in a bathroom, and it is greater than the degree you expect at your table in a restaurant. I wouldn't describe being in a bathroom as being 'in public' though.

>Obviously not. Reread.

I think you should read the last paragraph you wrote on the comment I replied to. It was completely unclear. You were replying to a statement that even in Ben Franklin's time there was no expectation of privacy in public. You did not refute this, essentially saying 'times have changed, you're not considering how things have changed.' Logically, that means that there is now an expectation of privacy in public.

[godelski]

> That doesn't have much to do with your earlier question, though.

It has everything to do with the question. Being recorded is a different level of privacy invasion than being seen.

> I wouldn't describe being in a bathroom as being 'in public' though.

And thus why you can't assert that your definition is absolute. If people are disagreeing and you admit community norms differ, then you can't have an objective reference and that's my main point.

[ameister14]

>Being recorded is a different level of privacy invasion than being seen.

Why do you think I used the newspaper-man example? Being recorded in text has happened for a long time.

>you can't assert that your definition is absolute. If people are disagreeing and you admit community norms differ, then you can't have an objective reference and that's my main point.

I never asserted that my definition was absolute. I applied the spectrum to your examples. A 'reasonable person' standard is not an arbitrary bright-line rule, it's representative of the community and what their idea of a reasonably prudent person's expectations and behavior are.