[itishappy]

How do you figure? There is no "right to record," nor is surveillance mentioned in the Declaration of Human Rights. In fact, it points out in Article 12 and 29 that rights and freedoms can and should be limited by law if they impinge on the rights and freedoms of others, such as those mentioned in Article 12:

> No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

That doesn't seem as clear cut as you're implying.

[aa-jv]

Article 19:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Seeking and receiving information covers gathering facts, evidence, or observations from public events or spaces (e.g., documenting protests, government actions, police conduct, or everyday occurrences visible in public).

You might not like it, but its a key mechanism by which we, the people, keep despots and the police state in check.

[itishappy]

I do like it, and agree it's an important mechanism, but it's not a blank check as it's in tension with the other articles. I do not read that as granting you the right to any and all information you might desire. For instance, I hope we can agree that allowing the public to film bathrooms or gynecology appointments crosses a line.

[aa-jv]

Oh, there are always going to need to be exceptions to the rights, such as the tacit contract one enters into, abrogating the right to record, when entering a privacy-respecting space that is marked as such and is not part of the public commons but rather that of a private entity whose intent was to create a private bathroom in which people are definitely not to record each others activities without additional contract - i.e. consent - of all parties involved.

But it still has to be iterated in light of such exceptions, that the rights encoded in the UDHR are there to protect humanity, as a species, so that we can indeed form our own cultures freely as we see fit.