If your houses are close together I don't think it's reasonable to have an expectation of privacy on the driveway or front porch. After all sound at normal speaking volume can easily travel 100 feet on a quiet day, if there's nothing in-between.
It’s valid to question the value of laws. Sometimes I wish I did have more privacy in public.
But more importantly, technology has completely changed what non-privacy looks like and is tragic to me that laws haven’t caught up.
There’s a huge practical difference between “someone within 100ft, probably a neighbour who I know, might hear me and probably instantly forget what I said, but 99% of the time no one is there” and “100% of your conversations are recorded, transcribed, and stored forever by a profit-maximising behemoth with various other unavoidable tentacles into my life, and also they might sell or give that data to other companies also the police”.
That‘s not at all the case in many other legal contexts.
Clearly it's impolite to peer into your neighbours windows with binoculars, and gossip about all the conversations you overhear with your hearing aids, but you've got the right to do so, don't you?
What about observing your neighbours through a peep hole in your door (or wall)? What about setting up a camera instead of a peep hole? And what if you want to see the camera feed from your phone? Reference it for later? Where is the line? All of these, including pens and paper, are technological augmentations to our innate capabilities. I'm not against banning them per se, I'd just like a clear idea of why we ban some and not others.
Can you think of any reasons why we would want to ban some and not others? It reminds a bit of something that Emma Goldman might say: people have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.
Say in 1000 years from now everyone has cameras and storage media implanted in their persons, I suspect the public consciousness surrounding what is and isn't expected to be recorded would change. I don't however think that your fundamental liberty as a human being should depend on the public consciousness, but rather be derived from principles/axioms.
If you avoid this question, you can justify just about any tyranny so long as it can be argued to be "beneficial" (spoiler alert: this is how the worst atrocities in history have been justified). In other words, the ends don't justify the means.
I'm curious what others think of the ethics of a non-internet connected camera? Does that really resolve the issue or do you still consider it wrong to have residential security cameras that capture the sidewalk/street outside the house?
I've learned my lesson and now invite people to our backyard, which is free of any cameras.
Their house and their drive and just because voice could travel 100-feet sill doesn't mean they have the right to record it.
If the speed limit is twenty and someone is driving thirty, does that give you the right to drive thirty too?
They absolutely have the right to record audio that is audible on their property. It used to be the norm that if you don't want your neighbors hearing you the onus is on you to speak quietly in a private place. With the increase in such devices the norm too will shift to "know that a device is recording audio in certain zones"
One should travel about the same speed as all the other traffic and one should not record people without their express consent regardless of the law.
The behavior both you and the person you replying to are advocating for are just examples of being a jerk within the letter of the law.
Will we then just have to always assume that a device is recording audio in all zones?
Countermeasures will be figured out, but it's an interesting thought process.
Sure, one can have laws, but these kinds of laws are incredibly hard to enforce when it becomes trivial for everyone and their grandmother to break the law. It's frankly much easier to police Lyft/Uber usage than this.
[1] Cone of Silence from Get Smart...?
- Whether the recording was intentional (i.e. if I set up cameras for security, and it so happens to record all your conversations on your front porch, this is unintentional, but if I set up a microphone by the wall, it's intentional).
- The type of communication - most resources I'm finding discuss phones and similar channels.
From what I could find:
I just checked one state: Video recordings are fine, but if they capture the audio of the conversation, then it's a violation of the law.
Other places define a violation of reasonable expectation of privacy to require an explicit intent to eavesdrop - so if it's a side effect of my security system, it's not illegal.
In a number of states, your front porch or backyard are not considered private places. If the conversation is between you and someone else (not the neighbor), then by federal law, intentionally recording the conversation is illegal (neither party consented). When it's unintentional, it'll probably vary from state to state.
In most places they can point the cameras onto the exterior of your property. But if it can see inside a bedroom (even if the window is open and no curtains are drawn), it can be a violation.
Interesting side effect of searching for this: Video monitoring of your baby may be illegal!
If you share a wall with a neighbor, it's always best to try and resolve things through direct communication. Our kids still play together, and they still come over and vice versa.
I made my point, and they actually engaged in helping mitigate my concerns. I certainly can't ask them to remove their camera, so that's why we took this approach. They met us half way, but clearly felt something more when one of them over reacted.
I also the think there is a practical difference between occasionally/potentially being observed when entering/leaving your property, and having your comings and goings surveilled 24/7/365