Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!maytag!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: Privacy of personal data (was Re: Personal Privacy Violations)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 91 07:55:11 GMT
Message-ID: <1991Jan13.075511.12521@looking.on.ca>
References: <1991Jan10.204101.29296@hoss.unl.edu> <5776@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> <1991Jan12.180934.1314@looking.on.ca> <14282@milton.u.washington.edu>

I will also point out that the US constitution, as written, defines the
limits of the government.  Other laws, done under the constitution, define
the limits of private citizens.   The constitution of the USA does not
assure privacy from other citizens, statute law does that.   Statute law is
clearly inferior to constitutional law.

I don't know about the California constitution, I've never read it.  The
constitutions I have read have all limited governments, by and large.

If the constitution defines a right of privacy (such as the right to be safe
from unreasonable search and seizure, except when you have a 911 system
manual) it only protects you from the government.  You must rely on statute
law to be safe from other citizens.

Any right not to have other citizens blab your personal info comes also
from statute law, and it is thus bound by the constitution.  I have never
heard of preambles superseding actual articles of a constitution, perhaps
I haven't read enough?

In Canada, sadly, our rights are not as protected, for they are
"subject to such reasonable restrictions as can be demonstrably justified
in a free and democratic society" or somesuch crap.   This has given the
courts great latitute to uphold laws that would never pass in the USA.

Of course, while the Canadian constitution grants the courts this latitude
explicitly, the US courts of often taken it upon themselves.

So who knows what sort of laws you can have.   I still say freedom of the
press is a time-honoured and valuable principle which should not be
discarded at the first sign of computerized trouble.  There are many
other routes, such as confidentiality law and defamation law, that we
can use to protect our privacy.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473