Sometimes, tying together two seemingly disparate events/stories can make a good connection to explain an issue larger than either of them. So it is as I look at the national outpouring of deserved condemnation that followed the musings of multi-millionaires Donald Sterling and Mitt Romney some time ago. Talk about disparate!
But they do share one commonality - aside from one disparaging 47% of the citizens of this nation and the other with his racist vehemence involving an entire race of Americans. Both instances involved men who believed they were speaking only to the people in their private presence while the words of each were surreptitiously recorded and later made public.
Whether the principals of either situation engaged in speech that was morally right or wrong is up to any of us who care to decide. But one thing is sure. Both fell victim to expectations of privacy that were violated - a privacy that is gone from our lives. An individual right we were brought up to expect, but which has now been eradicated by our own technology and the immoral use of that technology by those so devoted.
We’ve long been openly or surreptitiously spied upon by microphones and cameras in public - and some not-so-public - places. Banks, grocery stores, parks, street corners, while we’re driving and - if Eric Snowden’s disclosures are accurate - for years while we’ve engaged in written or spoken conversations with the expectation of absolute privacy. We can be outraged. We can be vehement in our opposition. We can demand an end to such activities. But we’ll lose. The genie is out of the bottle. We have become a world where Big Brothers - and Big Sisters - keep an eye and an ear on all we do.
From a legal standpoint, Sterling may have a case that his First Amendment rights were violated. He uttered his now infamous racist and sexist words in a two-way conversation in California where recording any such conversation is illegal unless approved - in advance - by BOTH parties. Seems obvious he didn’t know of the recording and, thus, at least in California, it appears to have been an illegal act.
Then there’s the part of the story in which someone with knowledge of that recorded conversation leaked it. His then-girl friend - the second party in this instance - denied it was her. A little shakier in the legal department but certainly a moral issue.
Big box stores - grocery and otherwise - often advise you are being recorded “for your own safety.†Pure B.S.. You’re being recorded as a shoplifting tool, a video record of robbery attempts and at the advice of insurance carriers to catch people falsely claiming injury on the property. Your “protection†figures into none of it.
Banks, convenience stores, gas stations, traffic enforcement, parking lots, city parks, toll road, pizza parlors, airports, casinos, cruise ships, theaters, museums, court houses, city halls and other public buildings, bars, merchants of all sizes - all are represented in the official “people watching†industry. Some even use sonic or ultrasonic signals to notify local police of illegal entries or other after-hours interruptions. It matters not how small a community you live in - you are under surveillance.
Cell phones have made amateur “reporters†of all of us. Think of videos or pictures you’ve chuckled about in your emails or social media. Much of the time, what amused you was the subject of the missive was unaware of his/her situation. So, innocently someone passed it to you and - innocently, of course - you saw it, laughed and - innocently again - sent it along.
I’ve seen cameras disguised as buttons. Medicine now uses “live†cameras in pills! Swallow one and the Doc can watch your innards at work. More and more cops are wearing cameras to protect themselves from false charges of brutality or other inappropriate actions. Bail bondsmen, process servers, cab drivers - even postal delivery workers - are following suit.
Awhile back, I decided to count cameras I could see in one day’s travels. The total was eight readily identifiable with another six “could be’s†in cop cars, two stores and on the highway. And I live in a town of only 1,400 folks. Of course, the whole idea is you shouldn’t be able to spot surveillance cameras in some cases but you can figure they’re there. In addition to those you’re told about - for your own “protection,†of course.
Privacy - personal privacy - as we’ve known it is gone. Has been for some time. Even in our most unguarded moments, we’re apt to be spied on by someone. It matters not where you live - what you do - where you go. We’ve either gotten so used to it we don’t think about it or - as in the case of those big stores - we’re told of the spying and we accept it.
Used to be old political hands warned newcomers “If you don’t want to see it in the morning headlines, don’t say it.†Not so anymore. They’ve just gotten more defensive. Check out the number of “public†meetings where professional media is turned away. Outsiders only know what went on if someone inside leaks pictures or audio recordings. Which happens often.
I can think of no defense against this invasion in our lives. Not one that works, anyway. As citizens, we can’t afford to hire security people to daily check our homes and other places of expected personal privacy for recording devices. If the professionals can’t do it, the rest of us don’t stand a chance.
As the old joke goes, “even paranoids can have real enemies.†The unblinking official eyes and unofficial ears most of us are caught by each day may not be enemies. But, no matter whose hands operate them, they’ve changed our lives forever. And not for the better.
R-I-P, privacy.