Privacy for naked drunkards

[jspazzer.livejournal.com]

Following the discussion about Google Streetview vs. privacy, some may be interested in the haha brouing over at the Villeside Journal site.   One of the intrepid reporters took a video camera to the Tufts Naked Quad Run and posted it on Youtube.   Drunk streakers were not amused.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/fun/x805327507

Comments

Re: there will come a time when you can even take your clothes off when you dance

[ron_newman]

I know the Tufts campus is private. That's not what I asked above. Was this event visible from public streets of Somerville or Medford?

Re: there will come a time when you can even take your clothes off when you dance

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Who cares? It doesn't matter what property it was on, you say the words "naked people" and don't expect SOMEBODY to show up with a camera, you're stupid. Especially an annual event as heavily discussed as this one.

Re: there will come a time when you can even take your clothes off when you dance

[spatch]

I agree. The semantic "in public / private campus" argument is useless. The fact remains we had naked people out in the open who apparently didn't realize there may be people in this would who'd want photographic evidence.

What if it had been students with the cameras?

Re: there will come a time when you can even take your clothes off when you dance

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's going to come up, mark my words. I bet even as we speak a "OMG THIS STUDENT HAZ NEKKID PHOTOZ OF UZ ON FACEBOOK" post is brewing on whatever Tufts comm is popular.

Re: there will come a time when you can even take your clothes off when you dance

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

sanctioned "barely" - their President still wasn't happy with in back in 2002, and the littered trash and after results aren't very lovely to witness.

google finds a number of hits from now to years past. people where there in droves, sutdents and not, and there were a LOT of cameras. i think someone forgot to tell them they couldn't be there. i think one of the runners had a camera. hah.

i imagine quite a few more videos and pictures, identifiable ones, will appear over time. i'm glad i stayed home sipping tea.

#

[komos.livejournal.com]

So, you're advocating that the runners taking part in an attention drawing and questionably legal event should be able to do so and have all the titillation without having to face any of the possible consequences? Is the campus filled with people who are utterly unable to take responsibility for their own actions?

I'm guessing that the vast majority of the cameras were manned by fellow students. Hell, I'll give good odds on that.

[komos.livejournal.com]

As may be inferred above, I think individuals who choose to be naked in public should be unsurprised when they discover that there may be photos or film of their public display. If I may be frank, the nude beach question is a red herring. If one appears in public, it is not unreasonable to presume that one's rights to privacy are relaxed.

There was a case decided not too long ago in New York where an Orthodox Jew sued a photographer who had surreptitiously taken his photograph and then used it as part of his body of work. The argument was that the photo violated his strongly held religious convictions against graven images, and that it was morally and spiritually repugnant to him that the image even existed. (Does this sound familiar?) In his decision, the judge wrote:

"[T]he courts have uniformly upheld Constitutional 1st [sic] Amendment protections, even in the face of a deeply offensive use of someone’s likeness.. . . [N]otwithstanding that the speech or art may have unintended devastating consequences on the subject, or may even be repugnant. They are... the price every person must be prepared to pay for in a society in which information and opinion flow freely. (http://www.silha.umn.edu/Winter%202006%20Bulletin/Erno%20Nussenzweigfinal.pdf)"

I believe in free speech and free expression. I also believe in personal responsibility. So do tell, where do I fall on your "gauge?"

[komos.livejournal.com]

Actually, what I have done is to reduce your argument to absurdity. This is possible largely because you primarily appeal to emotion and otherwise attempt to argue two opposing sides of the same concept:

Private events that occur on private property should be considered private;

v.

Privacy has no bearing on this discussion.

Since you are unwilling to accept that the protection of free speech necessitates a certain amount of presumed risk when one appears in public, let's frame the problem slightly differently. Based on your logic, I should be able to stand in a public place holding a sign visibly displaying my social security number and other personally identifiable information and be able to expect that no one will collect this information and use it in a fashion that could potentially damage me or my interests. Technically, I am doing nothing wrong, and someone who did collect that information for nefarious use would, in fact, be behaving unethically.

The main question, however, is "Should I be surprised or outraged?"

You have argued yes, but I would counter that both reactions are based on a wholly naive assessment of the risk involved. I chose to display my private information in public, so it should come as no surprise that it was collected and used in a manner that was repugnant to me. Similarly, that it was collected and used is ultimately my responsibility since, whatever assumptions I made about safety or the inherent goodness of my fellow man or the way things should be, I made the choices that put myself at risk.

I am not suggesting that participating in a naked run is somehow morally wrong. On the other hand, I think that appearing naked in public assuming that there will be no photography is hopelessly naive especially when a) there is documented evidence that photos have been taken at this same event in the past, b) there were cameras visible amongst spectators and participants, and c) it is reasonable to expect that a publicized naked run will interest photographers, whatever their ultimate intentions.

You can go ahead and accuse the photographers of being predatory, but as their presence and actions are an expected result of the actions knowingly undertaken by the participants, I don't believe that there is any good argument that can support the participants being "rightly angry."

[chumbolly.livejournal.com]

That whizzing sound was the point flying past you.

It boils down to this: (1) running around drunk and naked at college is fun; (2)people who video tape said shenanigans are a fucking buzzkill; and (3) people who get into legalistic arguments about freedom of speech in connection with said buzzkilling, or how college students are naive to not expect people to be taking pictures of them had entirely too little fun in college.

Sock Puppet Attack!!

[komos.livejournal.com]

In response:

1) Yes, it is. And?
2) That's one opinion, and given that people have been video taping said shenanigans for years might clue the participants into the fact that, shockingly enough, it may happen again.
3) I'm not the one stamping my foot and whining about how my having fun might have had consequences.

Effin' weak. WULD IT B BETAR IF I JUST SED: "OH NOES! YER PICHURS GOT TAKNZ!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH"

I thought actual discussion was welcome here, which was clearly naive on my part. I'll make a note for the next go.

Re: Sock Puppet Attack!!

[chumbolly.livejournal.com]

Nay, not a sock puppet. Rather, I'm a person that enjoyed running around Tufts naked in the way back times, though never as part of the NQR, and I'm dismayed that not only do people videotape the run without feeling horribly embarrassed (which I suppose has to do with these modern expectations of voyeurism of which you speak and, as it comes across, welcome), but that the voyeurs have their defenders and the kids having fun have their detractors.

For a moment, put aside the logical argument and think where this could go: in the 80s, Tufts kids ran around naked and it was fun. In the 90s (my time there), camera phones made the proposition dicey. In the oughts, people started videotaping the run, and then the Somerville Journal ran a story, and then some ass-clown like the guy who makes Girls Gone Wild videos (having seen the story) showed up and the whole thing sucked. You, Komos, are absolutely right that in this day and age, students should be well aware that they may end up online and embarrassed lest they run about showing off their bits, and that they do protest the results of their actions too much, but that fact won't turn me into a defender of the voyeurs.

And now I'm off to click my heals together and and wish to be transported back to a time when people who videoed naked college students having their fun were considered pathetic and were shamed out of being so obnoxious.

Let me guess... You watch Rocketboom.

[komos.livejournal.com]

For someone who's been sporting a false analogy as the central crux of his argument through this whole thread, it's more than a little amusing that you're so quick to trot that out.

You wrote:

If one appears nude in a situation where there is an express understanding that are not to be photographed, when someone violates that understanding, it is my belief that they have every right to feel angry.

...in response to:

[T]he courts have uniformly upheld Constitutional 1st [sic] Amendment protections, even in the face of a deeply offensive use of someone’s likeness.. . . [N]otwithstanding that the speech or art may have unintended devastating consequences on the subject, or may even be repugnant. They are... the price every person must be prepared to pay for in a society in which information and opinion flow freely.

You have claimed that the argument has nothing to do with legality. On the other hand, you have continued to suggest a presumption of a right to privacy, and as such, the legality of those rights is absolutely in question. Assumptions to the contrary notwithstanding, the students went into a public space during a well publicized event where the history of the event demonstrates that cameras have been used, and where cameras were clearly visible in the hands of spectators and participants. There was no enforcement on the part of the participants of an understood rule prohibiting cameras, nor were the Tufts police confiscating cameras or checking ids to ensure that this public event had attendance limited to the student body. It may have occurred on a private campus, but it was a public spectacle, and understood by spectators and participants alike as a public spectacle.


As for the moral argument, I see no reason to persecute the naiveté of people that simply hope that the world will respect their request not to be photographed.

There is no persecution. There is a reasonable presumption of risk attendant to appearing naked in public.

[elements.livejournal.com]

I agree with your view as stated in the above comment. Nothing to add, just wanting to say so.

Changing tack, then?

[komos.livejournal.com]

No one "requested" not to be photographed. They assumed that they would not be photographed, which takes a certain active denial since in order for standard photography to happen at night, there must of necessity be lights and/or flashes. They also assumed that the photographs would not make their way to quite so public a space.

I have already conceded that the photographers may have been predatory, though I think that the reporter deserves some credit for taking down the easily identifiable photo when it was requested.

Now, that said, I will note that you are now arguing two sides of the personal responsibility idea:

Students should be able to act as they choose without repercussion

v.

Reporters should be held responsible for their actions.

In the spectrum of naive students and predatory photographers, it's clear where your sympathies lie.

Weak

[komos.livejournal.com]

You wrote:

It is simply uncivil to clearly disrespect the wishes of students as they participate in a tradition with the expectation that they will not be photographed in the nude.

I responded:

So, you're advocating that the runners taking part in an attention drawing and questionably legal event should be able to do so and have all the titillation without having to face any of the possible consequences?

You confirmed:

Yes, because it's not questionably legal, and I'm not a puritan.

Citing the basis of your argument does not a straw man make.

[komos.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, that the university provides medical and safety personnel to cover liability and otherwise looks the other way during a traditional event that the administration has been promised will occur whether approved or not is not equivalent to the event being sanctioned. Tolerated is a better term.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Actually, because the university does this, while you THINK it means tolerated, it shows the university taking positive actions to deal with potential liability issues, which, legally, means they have facilitated the event.

[komos.livejournal.com]

OMG, you're right!

Here's a cookie.