[Brinworld] Car's data recorder convicts driver

[Adam Shostack]

On Tue, Jun 17, 2003 at 09:30:35PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
| On Tuesday, June 17, 2003, at 03:48  PM, Thomas Shaddack wrote:
| >
| >>Adam
| >>
| >>PS: Bob Blakely once defined privacy as the right to lie and get away
| >>with it, which fits into some of what many people mean by privacy.
| >
| >Another possible definition is the right to tell the truth and get away
| >with it.
| >
| >But both definitions are rather about free speech than about privacy, 
| >but
| >then we'd get to a fight over definitions which is in this context 
| >better
| >to leave on the shoulders of people making encyclopedias.
| >
| 
| Maybe I have a minor corollary to Somebody's Law: "All debates about 
| privacy eventually degenerate into foolish and off-target debates about 
| the meaning of truth."
| 
| It never makes sense to argue about a "right to lie" or a "right to 
| tell the truth." One man's lie is another man's truth. And even 
| _asking_ for a true response is usually an overstepping, as it presumes 
| the asker knows what is true and what is not. Pilate said it all 2000 
| years ago.

I wasn't arguing, I was quipping.

I find the many meanings of the word privacy to be fascinating.  So
when someone commented that the car's tattle-box is or isn't a privacy
invasion, I thought I'd offer up a definition under which it is.
Its a definition that lots of people use, as John points out.

Perhaps better than 'right' would be 'ability,' 'The ability to lie
and get away with it.'

Adam


-- 
'No, honey, I was working late at the office.'