Speaker: Sex with the office lights on: Yes, you can have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a publicly visible place
50 Responses
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Lilith __, in reply to
Imagine if no one had got their phone out. Imagine if the pub-crowd had merely had a giggle and a good story to tell their families when they got home.
…has the makings of a winning tourism advertisement targeting those planning a trip to the 1970s
We still have a choice whether or not to use the technology. Peeps can choose to be kind.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
a winning tourism advertisement
NZ 100% PUERILE
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mark taslov, in reply to
Absolutely Lilth __, what are we coming to as a species? Vigilante wannabe secret agents. I appreciated Pam Corkery’s bemoaning of the ’broadcasters’ and especially your succinctness:
Peeps can choose to be kind.
Possibly not what Pumkinhead had in mind but.
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Somewhere between the Savannah and the Carlton Pub sex became private. Does anyone know when we stopped (while “civilisationing” ourselves that is)?
Good to see Southerly’s lessons from The Physics of Light being used to illuminate.
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Grant McDougall, in reply to
Imagine if no one had got their phone out. Imagine if the pub-crowd had merely had a giggle and a good story to tell their families when they got home.
There is, believe it or not, precedence for this...
Back in the late '80s, a mate of mine was playing in a covers band at The Provincial pub in Dunedin, one Friday evening. During their set, the crowd slowly parted...to reveal a couple "in congress" in the middle of the dance floor.
Also in the late '80s or early '90s, the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience were playing a most unlikely gig - the Toga Party at Massey University's Orientation...when the band realised that couple in the front row were "in congress".
All I can say is "Eeuw".
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…has the makings of a winning tourism advertisement targeting those planning a trip to the 1970s
Oh, you mean the 1970's where The Truth maliciously "outed" Marilyn Waring, who could have been legally fired for being a lesbian if she wasn't an MP or charged with a crime if she was a man? I know it's terribly chic to act as if privacy has gone the way of men wearing hats in public but some history lessons could be useful in reminding people why it matters. Hell, if that's not your bag update your current general knowledge on people whose lives are literally put at risk by doxing and a particularly unlovely practice called "Swatting".
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
All I can say is “Eeuw”.
Perhaps in the 80's ,now , if it's in ear shot, it's normally " GET A ROOM!!"
I think had I been in that pub, I think I would have walked across the road and banged on the window.
Disclaimer, most of our family home is a reflective glass house. -
Paul Campbell, in reply to
Back in the late ’80s, a mate of mine was playing in a covers band at The Provincial pub in Dunedin, one Friday evening. During their set, the crowd slowly parted…to reveal a couple “in congress” in the middle of the dance floor.
from memory the dance floor in the Provincial (the basement) was about the size of my flat kitchen at the time .... it was likely a small crowd
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All I can say is "Eeuw".
Similar event in the front rows of a Rolling Stones concert.
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If you have a large sign on the front of the building saying:
NO LOOKING, WE'RE NOOKING
does that alter the legal position?
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These guys and dolls had their office building collapse around them, killing some of their works mates, the PGC building four years ago to the week. This may well be what the shrinks have been talking about with on going stress post quake.
The other
news from the story, we're rebuilding! There is no where else in the city where this could have happened. No other office blocks opposite bars. -
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Might work for a niche market.
I gotta say that, dammit, these
IF THE BUILDING'S ROCKIN"
DON"T BOTHER KNOCKIN"
signs just aren't selling at all...<too soon?>
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mark taslov, in reply to
Oh, you mean the 1970’s where The Truth maliciously “outed” Marilyn Waring,
Specifically that 1970s when – technology lacking – this type of parasitic behaviour was more or less exclusively the domain of scumbag ‘professionals’, as opposed to a practice willfully emulated by hoards of amateurs for shits and giggles.
I certainly don’t mean to imply that – at our periphery – we as a species have ever been any less ugly, but it would appear that in various periods the general population have – for whatever reasons – been less inclined to pursue this ugliness ad nauseum.
Obviously the trends can’t evolve in isolation; the evolving technology functions as an outlet for antecedent desires just as the technology driven media stimulates them. Neither you nor I are old enough to comment with much authority on the ‘spirit’ of the 1970s, though our elders offer inklings. Grant’s anecdotes above, though more recent, paint a fabulously contrasting picture.
Why the 70s? Cellphones were widely adopted in the 80s, nothing more, I’m still working on reining in my quips. From my scant knowledge I can’t imagine many would single that decade out as any kind of high point for humanity.
As I know you well know, the media have long been prone to scraping the bottom of the barrel, since the get-go most probably, which is why I think you’re so right to go there Craig; where this kind of trash would once – I assume – have been almost exclusively “Truth” territory, it now seems to have ‘gone viral’; ripe pickings for more or less the entire MSM.
P.S I love your pic
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Grant McDougall, in reply to
from memory the dance floor in the Provincial (the basement) was about the size of my flat kitchen at the time …. it was likely a small crowd
No, it was actually the reasonably large upstairs bar, which could fit about 300 or so in it, IIRC.
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Rick Shera, in reply to
OK, I'll bite Andrew ;-)
If the Hosking v Runting/Andrews line is accepted, there are some circumstances where something that happens in public should be accorded privacy protection. One could argue that this did not occur in public anyway since the action took place in private premises. But, even if we accept for the moment that this was in public, we have to draw a line somewhere. Your argument that they were reckless seems to me to draw that line too low. What you are effectively saying (and I note that Kathryn Dalziell seems to agree with you over on the OPC's site) is that unless someone takes pro-active steps to shield themselves from public scrutiny, they do not deserve protection. So, if the same action took place in a private residence and was filmed through an open window, that would be OK because they should have "opted in" to privacy by drawing the curtains? Or, in a car?
Really, what your suggestion does is shift the burden of privacy protection onto the individual. We all have to "opt in" to privacy if we are to get protection. I don't think that's right.
And to your point about conflating the two limbs of the test. While I agree there are two limbs, it is clear that the second "offensiveness" limb will colour the first "expectation of privacy" one. This was the case in Andrews and makes sense. A grossly offensive publication will naturally be subject to a lower threshold in terms of reasonable expectation of privacy. Or, to put it another way, it is reasonable to expect privacy for very private facts.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Hosking v Runting
It always, eventually, comes back to Hosking v Runting ...
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Oh, you mean the 1970’s where The Truth maliciously “outed” Marilyn Waring, who could have been legally fired for being a lesbian if she wasn’t an MP or charged with a crime if she was a man?
In 1976. In the quaint parlance of the era Waring was alleged to have “broken up” a prime specimen of the kiwi family, and from Hamilton, no less. I remember someone phoning Truth and pretending to congratulate them on the story. Having won their confidence they then expressed the wish that Muldoon’s alleged philandering would be given similar front page treatment. The truth spokesthingy supposedly said that they’d “love to”, but that there were practical considerations.
Moving forward a little, in about 1990 the Herald ran a relatively low key story about a couple putting on a similar performance to the Chch pair in an Auckland hotel. It happened in daylight, curtains wide open on an upper floor, and was witnessed by the massed tradies of an adjourning high-rise construction site, who made their presence known with loud applause, though they apparently left that until something worth applauding had taken place.
Perhaps Corkery’s civilising presence on the “wireless” was a factor in the media treating the incident with what now appears as a kind of nudge-wink gallantry. That or the lack of smartphones back then.
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tussock, in reply to
Imagine if the pub-crowd had merely had a giggle and a good story to tell their families when they got home.
Pics or it didn't happen. Carefully 'shopped for the kids (and youtube), of course, as a teaching lesson about privacy expectations in the modern world. Blur their identity and place of work and they've got their privacy back, surely.
There should be an app for that.
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I blame technology. This would never have happened if all that was available was a public pay phone. Then again I am sure that the occasional phone box was used for "immoral purposes".
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Sacha, in reply to
Duncan Garner relates such a story from his Gallery days, with pervy Farrar the teller of tales.
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Phil Wallington, in reply to
There were physical scars... carpet-burn... but no pictures.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
carpet-burn
Shag pile?
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mark taslov, in reply to
Duncan Garner
Articles dealing with the legal implications aside, it’s been quite remarkable to see this glut of journalists lining up to hurl their neatly bundled journalistic reputations onto the bonfire – a show of hands to fill positions at Woman’s Day and the like.
Uploading to a Social media network used by 2.7m New Zealanders, for voyeurs to actively click on, is one thing. Making an editorial decision to go front page with this for days on end for the benefit of the rest of us is some next level shit.
Anyone who’s been cheated on knows its hard enough hearing that news from a friend let alone it being broadcast for all and sundry. Over a week later journalists are still going to lengths to rub salt into that wound.
Doing the deed in Parliament as a scrub is what it is, dishing the dirt on yourself rocking the coitus in Bowen House for an op-ed piece mid-career occupies a time and space beyond levels, it’s delightfully Al Pacinoesque: “This is where I work and this is where I FUCK!”. Many would save something that sensitive for the memoirs, but it would appear Garner’s balls are unstoppable. No doubt Slater is kicking himself.
All hot on the heels of the previous week’s Eleanor Catton kerfuffle, the average kiwi could be forgiven for overlooking a Waitangi day announcement by our dear PM confirming that he’s anti-black, or for simply forgetting that the prospect of New Zealand going to war looms imminent.
Still, to the journos, if actual news isn’t quite your style and you’d prefer to be offering opinions, dominating the national discourse with triviality, reaping those hits, stirring up saucy debate, dancing on the graves of marriages, relationships, and our public offices, then congratulations on these, your mighty and profound career defining ejaculations.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Still, to the journos, if actual news isn’t quite your style and you’d prefer to be offering opinions, dominating the national discourse with triviality, reaping those hits, stirring up saucy debate, dancing on the graves of marriages, relationships, and our public offices, then congratulations on these, your mighty and profound career defining ejaculations.
John the grim reaper Armstrong seems to think it is us who are all pathetic and apathetic when we would like to know anything that isn't covered, that is ,if it should hurt wee Johnnie's precious ears. Why doesn't he just get a room for him and his namesake.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Garner and grains of truth…
Doing the deed in Parliament as a scrub is what it is, dishing the dirt on yourself rocking the coitus in Bowen House for an op-ed piece...
One wonders if that is the backstory to the change in cleaners at the Beehive – perhaps to a crew that were in someone else’s pocket rather than David Farrar’s…
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