Cycling Commuters, Video on the rise?: ABC7 tonight at 5pm

[culimerc]

I dont believe we are actually guaranteed the "right to privacy". We are guaranteed the right to freedom from illegal search and seizure, but thats not even close to the same thing. That said, I could be very much mistaken.

[jabberwocky]

I've been considering a helmet cam for a long time for just these reasons. I've had a few drivers do some stupid stuff near me, and while I do report them to the police (and Fairfax county does take those reports seriously), there isn't much they can do without evidence of some sort. The quality of cams is getting better and the cameras themselves are getting cheaper, so I'd expect them to become more common.

I've been told that dash-cams are very prevalent in cars in Russia, due to the way the traffic laws are structured and the fact that people are such dangerous drivers.

[mstone]

There is a recognized right to privacy, but it doesn't apply where a reasonable person would not have an expectation of privacy. (Like the middle of a public street.) If you were to take off your helmet and hold it up over a privacy fence to film somebody sunbathing, then they'd have grounds to claim you were violating their privacy. (Whether there is an associated penalty depends on the jurisdiction.) They could also call you "creepy".

[JorgeGortex]

As far as that woman who brought up invasion of privacy, I'm sure if she stopped to think about it a little longer she'd probably realize that it isn't (unless she considers red-light, speed, police car, and security cameras all to be invasions of privacy). I'll be generous and chalk that comment up to her being in front of a camera and its effect on her behavior.

I think what the comments by this woman showed were those of clueless entitlement. I don't think her comment was well thought out, and suspect might not be if she is unable to put herself into the shoes of another. The second woman interviewed showed the sadly combative nature of so many people. Especially drivers. "Oh, yeah?! I'll get you too!" If I were faced with a discussion where the person's response was similar to this woman's... I'd probably say: "Great idea. Go for it. Help us crack down on numbskull cyclists that make the rest of us look bad."

As I've always said, common sense is in short supply amongst the human population in general...

[rcannon100]

Wanna go off topic?

The right to privacy is guaranteed by the 4th Amendment. The Right to Privacy that we enjoy today has been developed over years of jurisprudence. It was developed because the Nasty British had a habit of bursting into our homes and rifling through our papers and effects.

Well is a telephone line a paper and effect, particularly when the police do it from outside your house. In 1928 the SCOTUS said nope, a bootlegger named Olmstead had no right to privacy when the feds tapped his phone lines. But Justice Brandies - the author of so much that we consider our right to privacy - said not so fast.

When the Fourth and Fifth Amendments were adopted, "the form that evil had theretofore taken," had been necessarily simple. Force and violence were then the only means known to man by which a Government could directly effect self-incrimination. It could compel the individual to testify - a compulsion effected, if need be, by torture. It could secure possession of his papers and other articles incident to his private life - a seizure effected, if need be, by breaking and entry. Protection against such invasion of "the sanctities of a man's home and the privacies of life" was provided in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments by specific language. But "time works changes, brings into existence new conditions and purposes." Subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the Government. Discovery and invention have made it possible for the Government, by means far more effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet.

Brandeis was ahead of his time in foreseeing squadrons of cyclists roaming around the streets with video cameras.

Four decades after Olmstead SCOTUS caught up with Brandies and concluded that when you make a phone call (this time a pay phone call), you have an expectation of privacy. This became the Wiretap Act. In 1986 this was amended by the USCong according to what they thought the Internet looked like at that time (at that time it looked like Compuserve and Prodigy). Today we have a right to privacy - but again over three decades later - that right to privacy doesnt match our modern communications (do you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in an email? in a FB post?).

Consistent in all this jurisprudence is that expectation of the individual of privacy must be reasonable. Nope, sitting in a park talking or doing anything - you aint got no right to privacy.

And consistent in all of this - the right to privacy - the 4th Amendment right to privacy - is as against the government - not as against cyclists.

There is a right to privacy based in tort law that Brandeis came up with. And here you could have a cause of action as against a cyclist if the cyclist did some hideous things. Think trespassing on your property and taking pictures of you as you parade around the house in a Wiggles costume.

But note -- there are Monica Lewisky laws out there about recording people in public without their consent. The police try to hide behind these laws when people record the police doing bad things - and this usually gets struck down as a violation of the 1st Amendment. I dont know the state laws - someone might - but there are restrictions that cyclists should be aware of.