> Do you not have a right to privacy if you're wealthy?
Honestly? Maybe not. He's the richest person in the world, and as such he's incredibly influential (and unelected). It's absolutely in the public's interest to know what he's using all that money and influence on, in a way that isn't relevant for your average median-earning Joe Schmoe. Once you get that rich you become more influential than a senator, and senators certainly don't have a right to privacy for their constituents to not know what they're up to.
On the private jet front, airplanes don't have privacy, necessarily so, because you need to know where they all are at all times to prevent collisions, protect airspaces, etc. So if you don't want people to know where you're traveling, don't use an airplane that has a 1-to-1 correspondence to you.
True, and he has also not passed a single law or regulation.
Rachel Maddow is also unelected, and likely has more influence than Musk does. Oprah also had tremendous influence, though she seems to have stepped away from the limelight recently.
Posting his airplane's position on twitter has nothing to do with aviation safety and everything to do with doxxing and harassment.
It is true, because lobbying is not passing a law or regulation.
In fact, a large corporation must make political contributions, otherwise they'll be targeted by the politicians (as Microsoft discovered in the 90's.) Large corporations are expected to pay tribute.
That's such a revisionist look at history. I don't know how anyone can be educated about the matter and think somehow that Corporations are at the whim of politicians, and not the other way around.
Microsoft overreached significantly and the US government 30 years ago gave them a slap on the wrist.
> Corporations are at the whim of politicians, and not the other way around.
Corporations are creatures of law and exist and are structured solely at the discretion of government, except to the extent government delegates power to other entities.
So, yes, they are at the whim of politicians.
Politicians may be at the whim of the haut bourgeoisie as a class, and those are the same class of people who the joint stock corporation as a form disproportionately serves, but there aren't the same thing as corporations.
I believe privacy is a right. Rights have to granted equally otherwise they're not rights. If you cross a certain threshold and lose your rights then they are not rights. And if rights can be granted and removed arbitrarily without due process then they're certainly not rights.
I do not believe the location and flight paths of your private jet being kept private is a right. Its transponder is also publicly broadcast whenever active, and any receiver in range on ground or in space can receive and retransmit its broadcasted payload.
I’d subscribe to an SMS or email feed of @ElonsJet if it was deplatformed. Higher level, I try to get any info available on Twitter in my email instead; it’s just a shitty message bus for my purposes.
Privacy isn't a right because it can't be enforced. Should I be able to sue someone for taking photos of me walking to the grocery store? Should other people be able to sue me for reading a newspaper over their shoulder? No, that kind of litigation is insane. There is no such idea as a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when you own a multimillion dollar private jet. You're being taxied through airports on one of the largest vehicles mankind can make, of course you're not going to be private. There's no basis for enforcing that kind of right, it would quickly devolve into a game of "who can buy the better lawyer", which certainly doesn't balance the scales of justice.
The whole "privacy is a human right" shtick is a virtue-signally scam. Privacy is your duty, nobody will give it to you for free. Complaining that the rest of the world won't ignore you after writing a Tweet that 500 thousand people liked is absurd. Musk had his chance to live a private life. He threw it away, and now he lives the consequences. Defending some multi-billionaire because he can't have his cake and eat it too is just ridiculous. I say that as someone with neutral feelings towards Musk overall.
I'm sympathetic, but some aspects of privacy are absolutely rights (and should continue to be). In the US, for example, HIPAA restricts health care providers from wanton dissemination of your private health information. This applies to Elon Musk as much as anyone else. I'm happy enough considering that a human right, inasmuch as similar laws don't apply to my dogs' veterinary records.
Or consider someone pointing binoculars into our window from a a high vantage point so that he can watch my partner undress. If privacy is "our duty", should we be required to use closed blackout curtains on all windows at all times, or else it should legally be our own fault for being watched? My vitamin D is already low enough.
I absolutely agree that you give up certain aspects of privacy when you accept the privilege of being extremely wealthy. No argument from me there. But I still think Musk should enjoy the right of showering without someone selling uncensored photos of the event.
Human rights were invented to protect the weak against abuses from the strong (who would otherwise always get their way because in nature might always makes right).
I think it's a bit of a pointless concern to think about the equal privacy rights of a man who's worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
If the strong don't have human rights too, then the strong will obviously dispense with any pretext of valuing the premise of human rights in the first place.
It's an interesting conundrum. As someone who believes in rights, the problem here seems to be neither with elon's expectation of privacy nor with elonsjet's expectation of free speech, but in the requirement of having to report his plane's ADS-B realtime output to a public system.
It doesn't seem impractical that the government needs that data to operate effectively, but to require that a person (or plane) broadcast their information to a registry that is public seems to be the crux of the issue here.
It's not only the government that needs that data, it's other pilots. These transponders are used to prevent in-air collisions between planes. That's not a centralized system; it's peer-to-peer. Your plane has antennas that are directly receiving these signals and ensuring that no other plane is too close, or on a collision course. These signals are also read by ground-based antennas for similar purposes (and also by avgeeks who want to collate the data, e.g.: https://www.flightradar24.com/add-coverage ).
The system fundamentally doesn't work if you try to make it non-public. The end result might end up being more privacy for Elon's jet, sure, but also way more mid-air collisions, as it would no longer be able to serve its function of letting a plane tell other planes where it is.
A very good point that embarrassingly highlights my lack of knowledge about it. Thank you for the correction.
I suppose a decent, easy system for evading its tracking would just be for rich people to swap keys to their private jets. Or chartering. Or flying commercial. Etc.
From a legal perspective, this depends on the country you're in. In the US where Musk lives things like Article 8 do not apply. Also, public figures in general are considered differently under various legal tests than private figures.
In your example about right to build whatever you want on your property, that restriction is limited to a property, not a person. So saying "this property is zoned for a building of X stories" is different than "if you're a 'public figure' your property is zoned for building X stories, otherwise its zoned for Y stories"
Do you think we should broadcast the location and movement of sitting judges and politicians? They're certainly "public figures"
Hum... It would be a great point if it was about people tracking him giving money to politicians, buying communication platforms, ads spending, or even random investments.
But tracking where he goes on vacation is really not relevant.
(Yes, the point about airplanes not having privacy stands, so the kid is obviously on the clear. It's just not a worthy social service.)
Honestly? Maybe not. He's the richest person in the world, and as such he's incredibly influential (and unelected). It's absolutely in the public's interest to know what he's using all that money and influence on, in a way that isn't relevant for your average median-earning Joe Schmoe. Once you get that rich you become more influential than a senator, and senators certainly don't have a right to privacy for their constituents to not know what they're up to.
On the private jet front, airplanes don't have privacy, necessarily so, because you need to know where they all are at all times to prevent collisions, protect airspaces, etc. So if you don't want people to know where you're traveling, don't use an airplane that has a 1-to-1 correspondence to you.