This is a question I ask myself frequently, and I can't find the right path to get out of this vicious cycle.
If that's not the case and you really would only part with the pie for that high of a price, and no other pie will do for the child, then what is there to complain about? How much do you think it costs to buy a pie made by, say, Gordon Ramsay? Feel free to replace with someone who is actually a good chef and not just a famous one if I made a poor choice.
To me it is like asking should we allow animals to kill each other. Not only can we not really stop it, even if we could it would kill any carnivores.
Suppose I have a store card for a grocery store chain. If this grocery store sells my data to a health insurance company and the insurance company increases my premium based on my food purchasing habits, do you think it is fair? I am under the reasonable assumption that my purchase history is for the grocery chain only and in return for that data, I get some discounts on my purchases.
There was a case a while ago where a forum sold their users posts to a drug company. The forum members didn't expect that. Do you think it is fair?
In both examples above, the companies are most likely acting legally (After all, who reads 20 pages of legal crap before signing up for a forum) That doesn't mean it is the right thing to do.
- all surveillance cease at some fixed moment and
- all information collected for a preceding fixed period (say 3 years', or maybe all of it) be made available for public inspection forever.
By "all" I mean just that - ALL information. Everything collected about everybody: presidents, prime ministers, senators & congressmen, corporations, churches, public and private institutions, trusts, public and private officials, their secretaries, clerks, bartenders and hired courtesans,etc - all of us would have our private information revealed.
This would cause an upheaval in the politics of the nation but would also provide a bonanza of invaluable information for society to review going forward. Do you want to know how corporate leaders break the law? Just look at the data and gather statistics. Are our politicians making illegal deals? Ditto. And of course, is my wife hiding something from me?
Allow prosecutions to proceed and the revealed information to be submitted as evidence. We might have to set up special courts and do triage to handle the influx of lawsuits and criminal arrests but we could at least get some of the rats out of the barn. Whether we burn the barn down or not is society's choice (doesn't seem we have a very good barn right now anyway - reminds me a bit of Animal House).
That not to say it's all bad, there are some possible upsides to a world with less privacy. For example, with the lack of any expectation of privacy for vast swaths of the average day, we may see a shift to people aligning their beliefs and actions, and that may be made easier by a shift in some of the less tolerant beliefs. This would by no means be a guaranteed, it would take work.
In the end though, I think whether privacy is somehow protected or not, one of the most important things we can do is make sure we are informed of, and inform the public of, what's likely and what's possible to have intercepted by surveillance. No matter the outcome, that's useful information for everyone to have, so they can act accordingly.
Also, either extreme is primed for a big disruptive phase-change if some new technology comes along that makes it easier to conceal or uncover things.
To some degree, privacy is important because people judge bases on social norms. If that is lessened, so it the benefit of privacy (not necessarily to the same degree).
(Alaska has an absolute right to privacy in their state constitution)
Our only hope is to better align our laws with our beliefs. Removing victimless crimes like drug laws will redirect this mass surveillance machine toward violent criminals. Full transparency in the government will prevent government officials from using the surveillance for personal gain or to harm political opponents.
Anything you write on the Internet, even if it's just your personal beliefs, will come back to haunt you in the future no matter how innocent it seems like at the time. If it offends someone (and pretty much anything you write will offend someone), there is a chance you could have your livelihood taken away from you.
I'm more concerned with this than any government surveillance.
I'm fine with legalizing drugs. I'm not fine with the inability of me, as a business owner, to be able to fire someone for coming into my place of business under the influence. This is exactly what the CA proposed law wanted to allow a few years back.
As a business are you currently less able to fire someone for being under the influence of marijuana than if they were under the influence of alcohol?
That would be an acute care situation though, not something that would be a concern in the workplace.
Ingested alcohol is less commonly used as a medical aid, but most every hospital uses alcohol on a daily basis.
A better question is someone who is under the influence of something that is commonly prescribed, such as opioid painkillers[1], antihistamines[2], or various psychiatric medication[3]. People are prescribed those medications for many different reasons all the time. The ability to drive or operate dangerous devices can be impacted as bad as ethanol, and many will impact attention or social interaction in various ways. It is difficult to compared these to marijuana, but it is obvious that some have much stronger reactions to these drugs.
Just like with drunk driving, the problem here is the focus on any particular drug instead of focusing on behaviors. It is similar to default-allow in computer security; trying to enumerate bad things[4] that might allow for bad behavior, the real solution is to change how the problem is framed.
Citizens concerned about safety on public roads are not actually interested in how much ethanol someone has had to drink. What matters is if someone has the necessary reflexes, fine motor skills, and situational awareness to drive safely. Ethanol consumption correlates with these problems, with a lot of variability. Instead of the breathalyzer, we should be testing the features that actually matter. This might suggest that some people cannot drive even when they are sober... which is kind of the point.
If someone shows up to work under the influence, you should evaluate if they are causing any sort of actual problem, and fire them for that. On the other hand, if they are on something but they do their job properly, then why complain?
[1] can cause to cause extreme sleepiness, dizziness, and/or nausea in some people
[2] many antihistamines - such as diphenhydramine ("Benadryl") which is over-the-counter - are well-known to be powerful deliriants. In many people normal doses can impact driving as bad as ethanol and make coherent conversation difficult.
[3] the problem here are to numerous to list. The popular antipsychotics can have almost any type of side effect you can think of, antidepressants can have unpredictable effect, and anxiolytics can cause drowsiness as bad as the opioids.
[4] http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/d...
I wouldn't expect the needed doses to be very high? Then it wouldn't be an issue in the same way it shouldn't be a problem to have a single drink before work and a BAC of .02
If the prescription unavoidably interferes with work competence then I'm not sure where things go other than "complicated".
The issue is that many business owners will be held liable for the actions of a person under the influence while at work because they allowed it to happen.
There needs to be a balance between employee and employer rights or complete tort reform to make the person under the influence completely responsible for their actions.
But yes, I agree that there is a problem with the current diffuse responsibility that creates terrible incentives for everyone.
You can therefore check, without prejudice, if a worker is capable of doing that job, without invasive inquiries about their bodies and private life. And should. And should be legally barred from otherwise testing employee competence.
What happens when someone being pregnant affects their job?
If you can fire someone for taking a drug to fix some ailment that they never choose to have due to the impact on their performance, then it would make sense that one could fire someone for choosing to become pregnant once it impacts their performance. Both or neither.
It is -- reasonable accommodation for temporary disability and mandatory medical leave for medical conditions (including those resulting from the requirements of treating some other condition) that can't be accommodated are typical requirements in civilized countries.
It's possible (likely) that it didn't pass, but that it was proposed is troubling itself.