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Privacy vs. Free Speech

Merton

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Merton
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Apr 19, 2012
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Inspiration for this thread came from Humes Fork and his link to PZ Myer's blog post, Sunday Sacrilege: Free speech is not freedom from responsibility.

The question is, when does one's right to privacy (if one exists) come into conflict with the right to free speech? Suppose someone has a secret that could get them harmed--for example, a closeted homosexual in the Bible Belt--is it or should it be illegal to out that person? And when does free speech, if ever, become harassment? Can I call you every five minutes and/or follow you around in public as protected free speech?
 
Answering your question takes up about two solid years of law school. At that point, I'd suggest you just finish your third year and take the bar exam.
 
Loss Leader said:
Answering your question takes up about two solid years of law school. At that point, I'd suggest you just finish your third year and take the bar exam.
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Well, darn it! I don't suppose there's a Cliff's Notes version? :p
 
"Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."

But that's an extremely granular place to draw the line. We can't go around measuring the reach of everyone's fists and the extent of everyone's noses, moment by moment, to draw that clear clean dividing line.

In some places, where we feel we cannot trust to social norms and conventions, we resort to laws, flatly criminalizing some fist arcs and nose-pokings, and flatly protecting others.

For the rest, we do--and mostly should--rely on social norms and conventions, to judge on a case by case basis the value of a person's speech, and how to respond to it.

But like Loss Leader said, the law itself gets pretty complicated and involved, and doesn't always draw that clear clean dividing line that we think we'd like to have.

For me, the heart of the Right to Free Speech--the "spirit of the law"--can be understood by understanding the purpose of the US Constitution. This is a document intended to place boundaries on a government's power over its citizens. For me, in the context of the constitution, the Right to Free Speech is primarily a right to freedom from government censorship. Specifically, censorship by the federal government, and specifically, political speech.

In terms of our relationship with our government, freedom of political speech is extremely important. In a healthy citizen-government relationship, that freedom should be highly valued and zealously protected.

Of course, there is no clean clear dividing line between "political speech" and "other speech", and anyway we generally want to have as much freedom as possible. We certainly want to be able to speak freely about as many topics as possible.

But there's no clean clear line.

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.
-- 1 Cor 10:23
 
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I think free speech is probably the single most important principal underlying a free society. Especially freedom of the press. So I would personally defend someones right to publish anything they want to.

That being said PZ does have a point in that if you say something stupid that's going to have consequences. If Violentacruz was doing something that would cause his employer to get pissed off and fire him that's his problem. We all have codes of conduct that apply when we start to group together with each other in mutual association.

Also PZ points out that any particular private forum has complete choice about what they allow. For example swearing gets bleeped on JREF (which I personally think is stupid) but it's their forum and if I don't like that I can **** off ;)
 
Merton said:
Suppose someone has a secret that could get them harmed--for example, a closeted homosexual in the Bible Belt--is it or should it be illegal to out that person?
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I don't disagree that's an important ethical question. I see that "free speech" is one of the rights to be balanced.

What I don't see is anything private at risk. If the speaker has knowledge unconstrained by pledge of secrecy, how is it private? If he doesn't, how is it different from any other unfounded assertion?
 
theprestige said:
For me, the heart of the Right to Free Speech--the "spirit of the law"--can be understood by understanding the purpose of the US Constitution. This is a document intended to place boundaries on a government's power over its citizens. For me, in the context of the constitution, the Right to Free Speech is primarily a right to freedom from government censorship. Specifically, censorship by the federal government, and specifically, political speech.
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Interesting point about political speech. I tend to think the only time free speech should be curtailed is when it becomes harassment, though I'm admittedly ignorant of what constitutes harassment either legally or psychologically.
 
NewtonTrino said:
I think free speech is probably the single most important principal underlying a free society. Especially freedom of the press. So I would personally defend someones right to publish anything they want to.

That being said PZ does have a point in that if you say something stupid that's going to have consequences. If Violentacruz was doing something that would cause his employer to get pissed off and fire him that's his problem. We all have codes of conduct that apply when we start to group together with each other in mutual association.
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I'm unfamiliar with Violentacruz... was he doing his trolling on work time? I can understand getting fired for failing to follow an employer's code of conduct, but not for activity outside of work.

Also PZ points out that any particular private forum has complete choice about what they allow. For example swearing gets bleeped on JREF (which I personally think is stupid) but it's their forum and if I don't like that I can **** off ;)
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Yes, that is a good point as well. Some environments are privately owned and are justified in limiting speech, however much I disagree with that notion. I don't usually use profanity, but I choose my words very deliberately; when I use profanity, there's a purpose to it.
 
DavidS said:
What I don't see is anything private at risk. If the speaker has knowledge unconstrained by pledge of secrecy, how is it private? If he doesn't, how is it different from any other unfounded assertion?
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Excellent questions! I don't really have a good answer for the first one. I suppose that unless all involved parties agree to non-disclosure, the information from any event will be near impossible to control. This is probably why I don't trust anyone. :P

Your second question brings up another issue as well: fraud. What if the information is an unfounded (and incorrect) assertion? Do people have the right to spread false information, whether they know it to be or not?

Well, gotta run. I'll have to think about this more and return later.
 
Merton said:
I'm unfamiliar with Violentacruz... was he doing his trolling on work time? I can understand getting fired for failing to follow an employer's code of conduct, but not for activity outside of work.
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He wasn't trolling on work time (or at least, that doesn't seem to be why he was fired).

What he was doing was behaving in a wildly unpopular manner that--if he'd being doing it in public--would have gotten him shunned and ostracized by pretty much everybody he met. Anyone who didn't shun and ostracize him would have been flagged as another potential asshat who should probably be shunned and ostracized.

But he didn't do it in public. He found a corner of the Internet where his bad behavior was tolerated, and where he could be reasonably anonymous. But... not anonymous enough. Like most Internet trolls and escapists, he probably would have been fine if he hadn't made a point of constantly pushing the boundaries of offense. That kind of behavior is bound to draw attention and curiosity, and soon enough he became notorious. From notoriety followed outing.

Once he was outed, his employer looked at the downside of being known to associate with him, didn't see any upside, and terminated their association with him.

--

Here's another case that might prove interesting: Lance Armstrong just stepped down from his leadership position at Livestrong, because the downside to the charity of maintaining that association was too high.

Why the downside? Because other people saw fit to widely report that he had behaved badly outside of his work with the charity. How does that case fit into our conception of privacy and free speech?
 
Merton said:
I suppose that unless all involved parties agree to non-disclosure, the information from any event will be near impossible to control.
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Isn't information control the very essence of privacy? As long as it's private, you have control. Once you lose control, it's hardly private.

Questions about a "right to privacy" are about how hard it should be to maintain or break that control. Once the cats are out of the bag, herding them is something else.
What if the information is an unfounded (and incorrect) assertion? Do people have the right to spread false information, whether they know it to be or not?
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Might as well complete the factorial: What if the assertion is coincidentally correct, but unfounded? Do people have the right to spread true information, whether or not they reasonably know it to be true? Do (or should) lucky guessers get a free pass?
 
My attitude is do not put anything on the Internet which your employer or potential employer would strongly disapprove. You cannot expect much privacy in public places like the Internet.
 
Over the years, I have developed three maxims about the Internet:

1. The Internet changes everything.

2. The Internet means your business on other people's computers.

3. What happens on the Internet, happens in Real Life.
 
As far as American law is concerned, in a nutshell, your speech is limited only as follows:

1. In public space, you may be subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, as long as they are not based on the content of your speech. (This is the reason you need permits to hold a parade, and can't block traffic. It's also the basis for anti-pornography legislation.)

2. You are also barred from engaging in speech that a reasonable person would believe to cause imminent physical or financial harm to another. This is the basis that allows for torts and crimes of fraud, slander, libel, and incitement.

3. You are not immune fro private consequences of speech. Private citizens may terminate your employment, have you evicted from their property, refuse to associate with you, due to your speech. (They are not, however, justified in committing crimes in response to your speech.)

4. If you are a public official, or use public airwaves, your speech can be limited. This allows regulations of candidates' campaign speech, regulation of network broadcasters, prevents military officers from dressing outrageously, etc.

And that's pretty much the gist of it. Of course, once you get into the nitty-gritty, it can get complicated, but that pretty much sums up First Amendment jurisprudcence in a little package.
 
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Skeptical Greg said:
What is this " right to privacy " that the OP brought up ?

Unless one is party to some confidentiality/non-disclosure agreement, is there actually any legal " right to privacy " ?
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Yes, there is. Generally, the law provides that wherever a citizen has a reasonable expectation of privacy, they have a legal right to privacy.

There are also many specific scenarios in which the right to privacy is set in law. For example: Freedom from warrantless searches. The police are legally prohibited from arbitrarily entering your home without your permission and inspecting its contents. Because you have a right to privacy.
 
The OP is with regard to privacy vs free speech; i.e. the disclosure of information about other people.
Aside from a reasonable expectation, what types of laws would protect that type of privacy?
 
How is this an issue of privacy vs. free speech? Nobody has had either their right to free speech nor their right to privacy violated by a government agency. Isn't that what free speech is in the US?
 
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