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Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

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Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#131
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you provide food/clothing shelter without violating privacy ? The person has to identify that he is needing assistance from the state for the state to be able to provide. The state needs iris/fingerprint because that is the only way for them to check your claim of who you are and you do not already have the means to access food/shelter by yourself.

Uh huh, and what if I do not want to depend of the government to provide me with food, clothing and shelter since I am able to earn those for my family and me (reducing the social security burden on the government), should I not have the freedom to excuse myself from these alleged social benefit schemes. Your argument and many similar ones are now boring and have been countered enough times already.

Actually, I completely agree with your position. If you dont want ANY benefit, you should absolutely have the freedom to excuse yourself. The problem is that in a country like India 99% of the people do depend on some benefit or the other.

Not sure if you are aware, but the context around this specific discussion in India is around the use of Aadhar for targeted govt. assistance. The govt. position is pretty much that we need Aadhar for any subsidy and the courts are arguing against it.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#133
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice I think the positive negative distinction is somewhat pointless. All rights, regardless of their "nature" require enforcement and consistent interpretation and neither of those things come for free. Part of the problem for Americans is that they have two definitions of rights. There's the ones in the Bill of Rights, which are phrased in a negative way. And there's those in the Declaration of Independence,…

> All rights, regardless of their "nature" require enforcement and consistent interpretation and neither of those things come for free. You start to hit on the distinction a bit when comparing the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence, but you seem to think the ones in the Declaration are less important. The Declaration talks of "inalienable rights". These are rights that cannot be legitimately violated.…

To be clear, I don't think they're less important. I think they're unenforced. But in my experience most people don't seem to really believe in the rights in the DoI if it would cost them anything. For instance, just the right to life would _definitely_ include a right to water, which is an example given elsewhere.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is tricky. I think a workable solution is to create zones where free speech is unrestricted and where new ideas can be incubated. They themselves would have some restrictions (e.g. you can't physically hurt the person you lost a debate to) but would, by and large, be free speech zones. The idea was described in this speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJktQiZRa5A The rest of society can have different rules w…

Yeah, that's an incredibly stupid idea–and I say that as a big fan of reasonable limits on free speech. Creating "free speech zones" seems like a surefire way to start telling everyone to "take it to the free speech zone" and stop annoying "normal people" with your ideas. It's like the wet dream of these people that have started calling citizens consumers, even in a political context, and advocate the criminal prosec…

The term "free-speech zone" is older than that. It goes back at least to 2004, and a similar concept under a different name ("protest zone") is even older.

Example from 2004: https://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/free-speech-zones-balancing-f...

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#135
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All rights, regardless of their "nature" require enforcement and consistent interpretation and neither of those things come for free. You start to hit on the distinction a bit when comparing the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence, but you seem to think the ones in the Declaration are less important. The Declaration talks of "inalienable rights". These are rights that cannot be legitimately violated.…

To be clear, I don't think they're less important. I think they're unenforced. But in my experience most people don't seem to really believe in the rights in the DoI if it would cost them anything. For instance, just the right to life would _definitely_ include a right to water, which is an example given elsewhere.

There's an inalienable right to water to the extent that a government would be tyrannical because people didn't have water. I can imagine a few different scenarios where that would be the case.

The "right to life" was more broadly talking about who owns a life (the individual, nature's creator, not the government). It wasn't talking about the right to be free of all death.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The limit is action. Words are not important. But a lot of words are mixed with actions: harassments, segregation, etc. Those should be clearly identified so that free speech don't protect them.

If freedom of speech is important, speech must have the power to have real consequences. If something has real consequences, those can be either bad, good, or neutral. If all consequences of speech were neutral or positive, we could make the world a better place by connecting a source of randomness with a text-to-speech synthesiser. But that's absurd. Therefore, speech has the ability to harm. The distinction between…

No, harassment is the action of repeatedly crafting then using deliberately harmful speech toward a specific target. It's not about the speech at all. The speech can change. The combination of repetition, intention of harm, and specific target can not.

And you speak about consequences, but those consequences are the one that should be punished. Because you can assess consequences. You can evaluate damages. You can't evaluate the value of words.

If you say "kill the xx" one time, it really doesn't matter.

If you say "kill the xx" and that it leads to attempt to kill, then the problem is the intent to kill.

Otherwise South park / Rick and Morty could not exist.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#137

It says a lot about where we are headed that the Supreme Court had to say this.

I think this is needless alarmism. I am glad due process was followed, and what was previously a grey area has now been made clear.

You must read the judgement & the cases they cite before making such blanket, unsubstantiated assertions. There's been a history of cases that this judgement rests on, many of which guided & led to the conclusions drawn by this 9 panel of judges. [1]

I don't understand what value a blanket statement such as this adds to the conversation. Do you believe things were better in the 1970s? 1980s? If so, please substantiate your belief with evidence.

Do you subscribe to the trivial, cynical notion that our society is going to dogs? if so, let us have a conversation on why I disagree. But seemingly empty, vacuous but emotive statements such as these do not necessarily lend themselves to constructive discussion, IMO.

[1] http://supremecourtofindia.nic.in/pdf/LU/ALL%20WP(C)%20No.49...

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#139
"The petitioners, former Karnataka high court judge Justice K.S. Puttaswamy and others, had contended that the biometric data and iris scan that was being collected for issuing Aadhaar cards violated the citizen’s fundamental right to privacy"

I find the above interpretation of privacy troubling. In order for the government to effectively distribute social services to the needy, cutting out corrupt/inefficient middlemen, it needs a way of effectively verifying someone's identity, so that people can't dual-enroll themselves. Having people provide biometric identifies such as Iris scans, if they want to qualify for government services, seems like a perfectly reasonable way to do this. I would also contend that when most people declare the importance of privacy, they are talking about their actions and lifestyle, not fingerprints or Iris scans. It would be sad if this ruling prevents the government from efficiently providing social services to help the poor.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#140
post #139

" The petitioners, former Karnataka high court judge Justice K.S. Puttaswamy and others, had contended that the biometric data and iris scan that was being collected for issuing Aadhaar cards violated the citizen’s fundamental right to privacy" I find the above interpretation of privacy troubling. In order for the government to effectively distribute social services to the needy, cutting out corrupt/inefficient middl…

Not really. He means that govt cannot force every citizen to undergo iris scan etc. for obtaining Aadhar card. I would like to get Aadhar without iris scan (and am willing to let go of secondary benefits like LPG subssidy etc). Such an option doesn't exist as of today. I, as an individual, will exercise my right to privacy by deciding whether to give my biometrics or not. Govt should not decide on my behalf.
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