Bomb#20
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Quite so. If you want me to psychoanalyze Parliament, I imagine the Coalition would have banned both, so this sounds like something Labor did. Presumably artistic purposes get a pass because censoring artists is something Labor MPs associate with reactionaries and they want to think well of themselves. Presumably jerking off purposes don't get a pass because everybody hates pedos.But even a nuanced view does not mean intellectually honest or sophisticated. Australia recently had a kerfuffle over an artist who took nude portraits of children and displaying said art. Nude photos are (or were, at any rate) allowed, as long as their for 'artistic purposes'. To be crude, exactly why 'artistic purposes' gets a free pass but 'jerking off purposes' doesn't, I'm not sure. It might seem obvious to the legislature why one of them should be banned and the other not, but it's not obvious to me, nor is it obvious to me how they're going to tell the difference.
So does that mean if I overhear a conversation and write it down, you think I shouldn't be allowed to show anyone the transcript?Do you have an actual argument for why the line should be drawn between taping it and playing the tapes for others?
Well for one thing, the first category is about making a record of something, and the second category is about showing that record to somebody.
You say that as though the only consideration is harm to the recorded person. The circumstance that the observer is looking for evidence against someone is generally considered a point in her favor. Exposure of wrongdoing is considered a net positive to society; the harm to the wrongdoer is considered either a less weighty factor, from a purely utilitarian viewpoint, or else icing on the cake from a retributive viewpoint. But if you videorecord someone just for titillation, that's perceived as lacking redeeming social value. So that leaves nothing to put on the scale against the preference of the subject not to be videotaped, other than the observer's pleasure and respect for his freedom. Since he's presumably a perv, his sexual pleasure is valued at zero or even negatively. As for freedom, people use that word to refer to three very different things:Most of us think it's morally permissible to videorecord someone surreptitiously, even if we're looking for evidence against them, e.g. a woman who hires a private detective to follow her husband, or an insurance company looking for evidence of insurance fraud. So if it's morally permissible to record something surreptitiously to look for evidence against someone, it seems to me that it should also be morally permissible to record something when you have motives that are far less likely to harm the person being recorded.
1: I get to do what I want.
2: You get to do what I want.
3: You get to do what you want.
Most people don't give a damn about type 3.
Yes, I assume that was the whole point. They can't have been trying to exempt wax cylinders; they must have said "electronic" specifically to make it clear that writing down what you overheard wasn't against the law.(Funny story about that. The California statute explicitly says "electronic". This means if you somehow manage to record a private conversation mechanically onto an old Edison wax cylinder without giving yourself away, it's legal! )
That could be an important distinction. Writing down a conversation is also 'recording' it (it's on the record, so to speak).
Of course they differentiate motives and circumstances; you gave an example yourself: "artistic purposes". Sure, they make something forbidden and perhaps outline exceptions, but that's because it's hard for courts to read defendants' minds. They're absolutely taking into account what people's motives and circumstances are likely to be when they decide which things to forbid and which exceptions to outline. If they can't imagine a person with good motives doing X, they forbid it. But if they think of one good motive for doing X, then they try to come up with some observable detail Y that will occur when the X-doer has that motive but not when he has one of the bad motives, and they'll forbid X except when Y.All of these things make a difference and the legislature weighs the differences when it decides where to draw the line.
It does not seem to be that nuanced. Apart from perhaps exposing corruption, I don't think legislatures differentiate different motives and circumstances. They make something forbidden and perhaps outline exceptions.
That's all very well if you want to make like Socrates and James Brown, and merely ask why the crotch shots should be illegal. But when you make the positive claim that they should be legal you're signing up for burden of proof.Arguments of the form "This is okay; therefore that is also okay." aren't valid arguments until you explain why none of the differences between this and that should carry any weight.
It seems to me it's the legislatures who need to be doing the defending: in some places it is okay to videotape someone but not audiotape them.
Welcome to democracy. Perhaps the general public are more secure than you in their ability to conform to clothing conventions, and less secure about their wittiness.This seems to me the exact opposite of what would be legislated if you were concerned about protecting privacy.
I believe I'm often quite witty in what I say, but sometimes my trousers drop and I'm exposing more than I want to and more than the world needs to see. Yet audiotaping me is forbidden but forever capturing an unflattering image is kosher.
Or perhaps people feel video is a window onto their bodies and audio is a window into their minds.