progression of technologies

[Nick Econopouly]

Also, in some states there were(/are?) laws prohibiting audio recording of
unwilling participants- but not video recording. This was used by police
to stop people from filming them, even in public places. 
On 06/27, jim bell wrote:
>   From: "dan at geer.org" <dan at geer.org>
> 
> >Paraphrasing Bonnie Raitt, let's give 'em something germane
> >to argue about.  In particular, what do I have wrong here:
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> http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/Passcode-Voices/2015/0617/Opinion-The-reasonable-expectation-fallacy
> The article contains a statement, "Most privacy laws exist to block government actions. A few exist to block private institutional actions. But none exist to block individuals' actions."
> Strictly speaking, that is not entirely true.  During the 1960's, I think, laws against recording conversations were promulgated.  This, of course, was the error of the newly-practical transistor.  See the 1974 movie "The Conversation" with Gene Hackman.  Now, I'm not suggesting that such laws were intended for the benefit of the average person:  Rather, I think politicians of that era realized that technology was beginning to allow the recording of their own statements, and they knew this could get very messy for them if this were considered legal.A second example was in the late 1980's, when laws were passed prohibiting radio scanners from receiving the 800-Mhz cell phone frequencies used during that era.  Apparently, people were outraged that their phone calls were not private, so rather than a technological fix, they passed a law prohibiting the manufacture of scanners that received those frequencies.  That was silly, however, because mostly scanners began to be built with pcb cut-options (or component options) which could be easily modified with a soldering iron to re-enable such reception.        Jim Bell
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