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Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

> They’re public officials

They're not elected, nor are they "public persons." There are plenty of regular folks working for the city, including analysts, beat cops, secretaries, and so on.

This is extremely reductive.

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> They're not elected, nor are they "public persons." There are plenty of regular folks working for the city, including analysts, beat cops, secretaries, and so on.

As a non-elected “regular folk” kind of person working for a state government (not city, but Constitutionally there is no distinction) a lot of my employment information that would not be public (and that both I and my employer might seek to protect, or different reasons, from the public were I privately employed) is public. Not just in a theoretic sense, but actually hosted and searchable by anyone in the world in numerous databases compiled by media organizations of public data.

Working for the government, outside of where the fact or nature of that employment is itself, say, classified information, is very much a “public” thing.

Unless I am really misunderstanding the rulings on this subject, though, I believe that if you're residing in CA (or another two party consent state) you do have the ability to refuse being recorded even when executing your public duty.

Police officers get a number of special treatments that empower them with more and less rights in certain settings due to the specific nature of their job.

You can record on-duty police officers in California without their permission.

https://www.jmllaw.com/blog/keep-mind-9-rules-of-filming-pol...

https://www.solutionlawapc.com/criminal-defense/the-right-to...

https://www.vjamesdesimonelaw.com/can-you-film-police-when-s...

There was even a bill passed in 2015 (still in effect) that affirmatively declared a right to record: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...

That's correct - but I don't believe other public officials similarly lack the right to privacy even while operating in their official capacity.

Ah, I see what you were saying now. It was a little confusing for me in the context of a discussion about police.

If they are in a public building with public access, so not in a restricted area, then recordings can be made. CA does have additional protections even in public concerning “confidential communications” which likely prohibit covert recording.

https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law

“...police have not proven themselves to be statistically worth the ‘right to privacy’.”

Your comment is extremely poorly worded with the recent and historical explosion of derision against black people, etc.

Very poor choice of words. :(

I can look up my municipality's public school teachers by name, find out their exact salaries for each year they were employed, and then use those names on any site like Rate My Professors to find their reviews.

The fact that the people who can pull you over, arrest you, kill you, etc. aren’t even elected is a totally separate issue, but perhaps one that ought to be addressed! They’re still absolutely public officials.

> They're not elected

Who said they were?

> nor are they public

They work in the public sector. That's what 'public' means.

I think op is saying there's a difference between, for example, the Chief of Police (a public person), and an undercover police detective. I think it's unreasonable to require all government employees, from DMV janitors to CalTrans technicians, to police detectives, to have a public profile. Is there any current law that stipulates otherwise (applies to all gov employees)?

If they're taking public money of course they should be accountable to the public.

> If they're taking public money of course they should be accountable to the public.

Really? A public profile for all... military personnel. FBI, CIA, NSA employees, government contractors, employees of corporation that accepts government subsidies/grants.

> A public profile for all

Yes, unless there's some kind of security exemption then names can be anonymised. I don't think most police are doing that kind of work though?

Why do you think that's controversial? It's public money.

> government contractors, employees of corporation

The contract details should be in scope, but what the person with that contract chooses to do with that money (paying employees) is up to them and should be private.

I understand and respect your position, and think there are some merits to it, but I personally believe it's unnecessary. Typically the 'public persons' within public orgs are their senior / high-ranking officials (e.g. chief of police; director of engineering), and often are directly elected (e.g. county sheriff). If there are grievances to be had within some public sector, we as citizens can and should demand responses from the leaders of those organizations. I don't think making it easy to harass low ranking public employees is a good tradeoff for whatever is gained by requiring them to have a public profile. I think most public servants (mid/low-level employees) should be entitled to the same level of privacy as everyone else.

> They work in the public sector. That's what 'public' means.

No, in the context of the First Amendment, that is emphatically not what it means. Where did you go to law school?

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