Thursday, November 4, 2010

Reasonable Expectation

I can take your picture, without asking, in a public place because the law says you have no "reasonable expectation" of privacy.

Monday morning found me in the Scranton State Office Building, a public building.  You own it.  We were there do do a story on people applying for the LIHEAP program, something that helps people in need pay their home heating bills.  It was an important story.  People need to know there's help out there, and I'm glad a couple individuals agreed to share their stories with me.  It's better to hear it from people going through the process, rather than listening to me pontificate.

All the people you saw were asked if we could show their faces.  If the answer was no, you saw them from the back, or from the waist down.  While they had no reasonable expectation of privacy, they did have a reasonable expectation of dignity.