The third-party doctrine is a United States legal theory that holds that people who voluntarily give information to third parties—such as banks, phone companies, internet service providers (ISPs), and e-mail servers—have "no reasonable expectation of privacy." A lack of privacy protection allows the United States government to obtain information from third parties without a legal warrant and without otherwise complying with the Fourth Amendment prohibition against search and seizure without probable cause and a judicial search warrant. Libertarians and liberals typically call this government activity unjustified spying and a violation of individual and privacy rights.
As far as the Supreme Court's interpretation of the U.S. Constitution is concerned, every electrical signal that leaves your private property or private person is considered to be publicly broadcast.
Don't shoot the messenger! I'm just telling you the facts. The U.S. Constitution is a real piece of paper and the Supreme Court justices are real men and women with real power. This is how they see the world and you should carefully engage with the arguments that they make. You should at least learn to appreciate their arguments whether or not you agree with them.
You might not like conservative thought but that doesn't mean that it is wrong or that it isn't influential and legally valid in a democratic republic.
How far are you willing to distort your paranoia in order to keep thinking that there isn't a very reasonable and balanced conversation taking place in the third-party doctrine about individual rights weighed against the public good?
If anything, the Supreme Court is duty bound to follow the constitution. If we have reached some sort of internal contradiction with the U.S. Constitution then we're going to have to make some amendments. These amendments will need a lot of political consensus to be enacted and people are going to have to accept some compromises.
The 4th amendment clearly states the government is allowed under certain circumstances to partake in search and seizure of private property. Why is that? It's because we want the government to be able to deny certain individual rights in cases where it could best serve the public good. Why does this forum tend to abandon these philosophical first principles in exchange for virtualized mathematical first principles that seem blind to the physical political conditions of mankind?
How, exactly, are you supposed to stop anyone from figuring out your draw on the power grid? Any outside private interest could go about collecting this information. Why and how do you specifically stop the government from doing so? If you want to install your own Tesla battery packs and your own Solar City solar panels, then you don't have to worry about your power draw on a publicly sponsored electrical grid, and I guarantee even the most ardent supporters of the third-party doctrine will fully support your rights to keeping your own information from leaving your own property and requiring the government to get a warrant in order to inspect your own internal records on power usage. I'm sure the government, or anyone else who is allowed to pilot their own aircraft in public airspace could get a pretty good estimate from other measures. Or do we need air police to protect us from other people spying on us from above?
The government has consistently supported the individual protections of the 4th amendment for private property. The police need a warrant in order to attach a GPS device to a car. They don't need a warrant to go through your trash. Anyone can go through anyone's trash. How else would you police that? Do you want the police making sure that people aren't going through other people's trash? Should we have a special police force that just makes sure the regular police forces doesn't go through your trash? Who watches the watchmen? We all do. We just consider it all to be public knowledge if it leaves your private properties. It's the easiest, least contradictory solution. If you want something to be private, you need to be very careful with it!
Or is it that you do disagree with the government's right to warranted search and seizure in principle?
I see that I accidentally sent you down the path of addressing the problem of 'should' vs 'can and does' with my last question: "...open to government data collection?" I'd like to point out that the original topic was that of paranoia in government monitoring. I read your initial response to be a suggestion that an individual is only monitored to the extent of what information they "publicly broadcast", so I responded with examples of government monitoring extending far beyond "electrical signals that you publicly broadcast from your house". It seems strange to me, with all the historical examples that say otherwise, that anybody would suggest that the government only collects publicly broadcast information.
> How far are you willing to distort your paranoia in order to keep thinking that there isn't a very reasonable and balanced conversation taking place in the third-party doctrine about individual rights weighed against the public good?
Well first you're going to have to effectively demonstrate that I'm being paranoid, all you've done so far is provide justifications for the very thing I'm supposedly paranoid about. You are also going to have to define "public good", because I seriously doubt that we share the same definition. I don't think the public good involves individual rights being trumped by majority tyranny or deference to whoever the king is that day, so we probably won't find middle ground on that issue.
> ...to be able to deny certain individual rights in cases where it could best serve the public good. Why does this forum tend to abandon...
I can't speak for the entire forum, but for me the problem is in defining "individual rights". I don't include murder or destruction of property (or the utility there of) as an individual right. So that leaves very little else to justify the state's forceful curtailment of individual rights. The raiding of a farmer's market to protect the public from scourge of raw milk is an example of what results when you overburden the term "public good".
> How, exactly, are you supposed to stop anyone from figuring out your draw on the power grid?
I'm not concerned with that. I am concerned about those that have the capability, inclination and authority to collect and then act on that information. For example: if the Mothers of America had a direct feed on my power usage data - I'd be pretty bewildered but otherwise unconcerned, because they can't raid me. I'm not a fan of the USG having that same data, because they can raid me for unknowable reasons at some point in the future. I imagine the justification for such action would be as equally ridiculous as the raw milk raids - energy star compliance violation under Executive order 2023.082-ProtectMotherGaiaFromEwaste.
> We just consider it all to be public knowledge if it leaves your private properties.
I totally agree. But the break down occurs at the definition of "it". We really have very little idea of what information we are broadcasting that is of government interest because they not only have a monopoly on violence, but they enjoy a one way flow of information due to the concept of state secrets. Until the state is subject to that same policy, citizens cannot make informed decisions about what constitutes a public information disclosure.
> I see that I accidentally sent you down the path of addressing the problem of 'should' vs 'can and does' with my last question
If people can legally do something, they will, and it really doesn't matter if they should or not. If they really shouldn't be able to do it, make it so they legally can't do it! They'll probably do it anyways, but then it would be illegal. That's a whole other conversation.
> I don't think the public good involves individual rights being trumped by majority tyranny or deference to whoever the king is that day, so we probably won't find middle ground on that issue.
Good, we don't actually have to find any middle ground! I'm perfectly fine with how the Supreme Court is handling their interpretations! I think that our common law courts and the judicial oversights that continue to define "the public good" are doing a pretty good job of it. Are you?
> I can't speak for the entire forum, but for me the problem is in defining "individual rights".
Good, again, I'm generally fine with the status quo definition! Are you?
> I'm not concerned with that. I am concerned about those that have the capability, inclination and authority to collect and then act on that information.
Everyone and anyone has the capability, inclination and authority to collect and then act on that information. It is not only a waste of time trying to figure out who does or doesn't but also a clear violation of one's rights to be told that they don't have the right to collect public information. I want a world filled with dumpster divers and phone phreaks!
There's no such thing as "the government". It's just a bunch of people and a shit ton of paperwork. You can't just start denying some people the right to do something just because their name is written down on a piece of paper somewhere saying that they work for "the government".
These are all reasonable considerations, which is why our current government and legal infrastructure works this way! Do you like that it works this way?
> For example: if the Mothers of America had a direct feed on my power usage data - I'd be pretty bewildered but otherwise unconcerned, because they can't raid me. I'm not a fan of the USG having that same data, because they can raid me for unknowable reasons at some point in the future.
Why are they going to raid you? And even if you do, you have legal protections, and they know this as well! They still need a very good reason to get a search warrant.
By the way, who the hell is "they"? Who are these people we are referring to!?!
> I totally agree. But the break down occurs at the definition of "it". We really have very little idea of what information we are broadcasting that is of government interest because they not only have a monopoly on violence, but they enjoy a one way flow of information due to the concept of state secrets. Until the state is subject to that same policy, citizens cannot make informed decisions about what constitutes a public information disclosure.
I totally agree as well! Everything that I'm talking about really depends on an even playing field. Information asymmetries are incredibly toxic. I feel like this applies equally to private corporations like Facebook and Google. We all stand to benefit from having equal access and equal privileges to our public information.
There are of course times where there need to be state secrets but I agree, there are WAY too many state secrets. We should slash the budgets of the NSA and the CIA. State secrets make a lot of sense for the Armed Forces. What's the point of a submarine if you know where it is?
The problem isn't that the NSA and CIA are legally allowed to exist. It's that their budgets are too opaque and bloated. I doubt they're getting much effective information from the incredible volumes of noise they have to sift through. Even when they do find "bad stuff", they'd still need to pass the information along to someone who has to get a warrant. If they don't find anything or the information was wrong somehow, well, sue the fuckers who kicked in your door!
There's a whole wide world of manicured office parks filled with lawyers just waiting to represent someone just like you! ;)
It is, we were talking about whether or not believing that the government goes beyond public data collection in the pursuit of large scale monitoring is paranoid. You originally said that it was, but given your subsequent statements I'm confident that if pressed you'd define "public" as the space found just outside of your skull. So the original question is meaningless.
> I'm generally fine with the status quo definition! Are you?
Nope, I'm not a big fan of the resulting laws that thinking enables - the outlawing of interracial marriage, war on drugs, etc.
> Everyone and anyone has the ... authority to collect and then act on that information.
Some have authority to a greater number of actions than others, I thought I made my point obvious with the phrase "monopoly on violence". If you're suggesting that Nabisco is equal to the USG in range of authority and action... well you're just being thick.
> There's no such thing as "the government". It's just a bunch of people and a shit ton of paperwork.
No, it isn't paperwork - it is a monopoly on violence over a geographic area. It is the ability to define one killing as murder and the other as capital punishment. By your logic: if all the paperwork in DC were to instantly vaporize then so to would the state's authority to use deadly force. The state's power is not derived from paperwork.
> Do you like that it works this way?
Nope, the logic for it does not follow and the unsound foundation has led a huge number of convoluted rules and exceptions.
> Why are they going to raid you?
I already said that it is impossible to know, I can't predict future laws - I even provided a silly example. So again, lets not be thick.
> I feel like this applies equally to private corporations...
I don't feel that I have a right to any information held by another private individual or corporation, just as I have no right to the fruit of their labor. But I do have that right in the case of the government - the very definition of a public resource. I think the cost of maintaining state secrets of all kinds, to include submarine locations, far outweighs the benefit - the concept itself needs to go the way of "the divine right of kings".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
As far as the Supreme Court's interpretation of the U.S. Constitution is concerned, every electrical signal that leaves your private property or private person is considered to be publicly broadcast.
Don't shoot the messenger! I'm just telling you the facts. The U.S. Constitution is a real piece of paper and the Supreme Court justices are real men and women with real power. This is how they see the world and you should carefully engage with the arguments that they make. You should at least learn to appreciate their arguments whether or not you agree with them.
You might not like conservative thought but that doesn't mean that it is wrong or that it isn't influential and legally valid in a democratic republic.
How far are you willing to distort your paranoia in order to keep thinking that there isn't a very reasonable and balanced conversation taking place in the third-party doctrine about individual rights weighed against the public good?
If anything, the Supreme Court is duty bound to follow the constitution. If we have reached some sort of internal contradiction with the U.S. Constitution then we're going to have to make some amendments. These amendments will need a lot of political consensus to be enacted and people are going to have to accept some compromises.
The 4th amendment clearly states the government is allowed under certain circumstances to partake in search and seizure of private property. Why is that? It's because we want the government to be able to deny certain individual rights in cases where it could best serve the public good. Why does this forum tend to abandon these philosophical first principles in exchange for virtualized mathematical first principles that seem blind to the physical political conditions of mankind?
How, exactly, are you supposed to stop anyone from figuring out your draw on the power grid? Any outside private interest could go about collecting this information. Why and how do you specifically stop the government from doing so? If you want to install your own Tesla battery packs and your own Solar City solar panels, then you don't have to worry about your power draw on a publicly sponsored electrical grid, and I guarantee even the most ardent supporters of the third-party doctrine will fully support your rights to keeping your own information from leaving your own property and requiring the government to get a warrant in order to inspect your own internal records on power usage. I'm sure the government, or anyone else who is allowed to pilot their own aircraft in public airspace could get a pretty good estimate from other measures. Or do we need air police to protect us from other people spying on us from above?
The government has consistently supported the individual protections of the 4th amendment for private property. The police need a warrant in order to attach a GPS device to a car. They don't need a warrant to go through your trash. Anyone can go through anyone's trash. How else would you police that? Do you want the police making sure that people aren't going through other people's trash? Should we have a special police force that just makes sure the regular police forces doesn't go through your trash? Who watches the watchmen? We all do. We just consider it all to be public knowledge if it leaves your private properties. It's the easiest, least contradictory solution. If you want something to be private, you need to be very careful with it!
Or is it that you do disagree with the government's right to warranted search and seizure in principle?