There's nothing authoritarian about exercising your property rights. And part of exercising your property rights means controlling how other people use your property.
Hotels and Privacy
- Thread starter Commodore
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There's nothing authoritarian about exercising your property rights. And part of exercising your property rights means controlling how other people use your property.
stinkubus
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Property rights are not absolute. The public can, and does, place all manner of restrictions on the use of private property for the public good. It would rightfully be an outrage if other places of public accommodation followed the lead of the airports and started subjecting customers to strip searches, groping, and being run through scanners which create photo-realistic images of their naked bodies in the name of "safety".
Timsup2nothin
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Oh, really? So, the hotel owner should monitor and limit what channels you watch on your TV in your room? Exercise position choice controls on you and your wife? Your statement is absurd in the context of the current discussion.
They are using their property as a rent generator. Within that use there are certain reasonable expectations, like if you peel all the sheetrock off the walls of your suite you are gonna have to pay for the repairs as well as loss of use. But to suggest that their property rights in order to be fully enjoyed have to make the tenant in effect a life sized doll is pretty far over the top.
They already do that through the cable package they purchase.
How does taking measures to ensure you aren't conducting any illegal activity on their property not fall under "reasonable expectations"? Because that's all I'm really talking about here. I would think it is perfectly reasonable to expect a hotel (or any other establishment) to take steps to ensure criminals don't see their establishment as a good spot to conduct their business.
I also don't see it as unreasonable to start imposing civil and possibly criminal penalties for establishments that don't take those steps.
Timsup2nothin
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Of course you don't. You picture a society of infinite deputized agents as something approaching perfection. But the fact is that no, demanding that property owners sign themselves up to do the job of law enforcement, I'm assuming without compensation, is not a good idea. And no, the solution to "well, of course these involuntary deputies aren't going to be paid so they aren't likely to cooperate" is not criminalizing their refusal to do law enforcement's job for them.
Not really. That is just you making assumptions about what I believe. In fact, after I post this, I'm going to head over to the CitiBank thread and express my agreement with Lexicus that law enforcement officers should be disarmed. That's not something an authoritarian generally advocates for.
Timsup2nothin
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That's just me making a description of the position you've claimed in THIS thread. Which of these statements are you suggesting is not an accurate representation of what you are saying:
Property ownership carries with it a right to expect laws to be followed on said property, and a right to enforce same.
Property owners who fail to exercise this right should be 'incentivized' through threat of legal penalties to themselves.
Neither one, but those aren't the statements I'm calling out as inaccurate.
Oh and for the record:
There are already some legal precedents for this, so it's not entirely unreasonable to take it just a few steps further. One example of this would be the owner of a car being financially liable for any damage caused by that car, even if they weren't the one driving it at the time.
Timsup2nothin
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From "you are financially liable for damages done by your car even if you aren't driving*" to "you should be criminally liable for refusing to provide law enforcement services for free" is not 'a few steps.'
*note that your liability for damages done by your car is limited, in most states, to circumstances where you knowingly put your car under the control of someone who could reasonably be deemed unqualified. "I loaned my car to uncle Bob while his was in the shop after his latest DUI incident, and yeah, that suspended license thing sure is a beach" isn't a good defense. "Hey, he has a license and insurance, go talk to him" generally is.
Timsup2nothin
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What makes you think that Commodore opposes them spying on their customers?
It's probably not a great idea to put law enforcement responsibilities onto commercial entities in this way. They seem to get stupid and overzealous when given anything other than extremely narrow and constrained regulatory responsibilities.
Ah, I see you've never rented a place to live.
stinkubus
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LOL.
In all seriousness though, Erin Andrews won a huge judgement against a hotel that didn't go far enough to protect her privacy.
Timsup2nothin
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Ah, but the invader of her privacy was not a duly deputized through property ownership law enforcement quasi-officer. In Commodore's utopia not only does the hotel have the right to monitor their guests, they have a legal obligation to do so.
FriendlyFire
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Release the PeePEE Tape !
Timsup2nothin
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I'm thinking you missed this.http://[URL="https://forums.civfana...e Nice Guy (split from Random Rants OA)[/URL]
Hotel rooms are designed and intended to provide lodging, not to kill/maim. So the connection you are trying to make is a huge logical jump and does not follow logically at all. And I have already pointed this out to you when you've made the exact same argument about other products like cars. Plus, since you don't even support gun manufacturer liability, making a rhetorical argument for hotel liability rings hollow anyway, right? But as you say, this thread is not about gun control. I'm just pointing out that the analogy you are making does not make sense.
And as an aside, you seem to be ignoring the fact that if a person is injured on hotel property, they can and do often sue the hotel.
Bamspeedy
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A hotel certainly could search your belongings if that was agreed upon before paying for the room. Mount Olympus Water park in Wisconsin Dells has almost TSA level security* looking for people smuggling in their own water bottles so you'll have to buy drinks from them, and you're forced to walk literally right through the middle of the tourist shop before getting to the rides.
*You don't remove your shoes, but they will dig very thoroughly through any bags or backpacks you are carrying.
Don't like it, just go to the water park across the street (Noah's Ark). More expensive, but less crowded.
As to illegal activity (drug deals, etc.) in hotel rooms, no they don't spy on the inside (at least they better not be) but often there is a suspicion of what is going on when a room has a visitor every half hour that only visits for a few minutes....I wouldn't want to be in that position, because yeah there is a strong suspicion, but it's not exactly proof that something illegal is really happening, and if it is something innocent and the cops got called the customer is going to be pissed! (well, if he was doing something illegal and got arrested he will be pissed too, but at least he deserved it).
My parents used to own a small motel in a small town, 30 years ago. Back then you had to fill out a registration card (name, address, etc.) and put your license plate on it. Most didn't know their own plate # and would have to go check, or they would kind of guess or try to get by with leaving that spot blank. The guy yelling at my dad accusing him of trying to look at his license plate, yeah, that was suspicious.
'Suspicious activity' I've been on both ends of it, seeing someone do something but turned out to be nothing, and I've done something that was innocent that had someone call the cops on me.
*You don't remove your shoes, but they will dig very thoroughly through any bags or backpacks you are carrying.
Don't like it, just go to the water park across the street (Noah's Ark). More expensive, but less crowded.
As to illegal activity (drug deals, etc.) in hotel rooms, no they don't spy on the inside (at least they better not be) but often there is a suspicion of what is going on when a room has a visitor every half hour that only visits for a few minutes....I wouldn't want to be in that position, because yeah there is a strong suspicion, but it's not exactly proof that something illegal is really happening, and if it is something innocent and the cops got called the customer is going to be pissed! (well, if he was doing something illegal and got arrested he will be pissed too, but at least he deserved it).
My parents used to own a small motel in a small town, 30 years ago. Back then you had to fill out a registration card (name, address, etc.) and put your license plate on it. Most didn't know their own plate # and would have to go check, or they would kind of guess or try to get by with leaving that spot blank. The guy yelling at my dad accusing him of trying to look at his license plate, yeah, that was suspicious.
'Suspicious activity' I've been on both ends of it, seeing someone do something but turned out to be nothing, and I've done something that was innocent that had someone call the cops on me.
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