One of the Starbucks I go to, Laurel Village, mentioned the problem they have with someone who messes up their bathroom. Several other coffee shops I go to, including the Peets on Market, have solved the problem in different ways, depending on their floor plan, layout, neighborhood and volume of usage. I always clean up a bathroom when I’m finished, if it isn’t an impossible mess to start with.
Anyway, the Starbucks with a problem left me thinking about the issue of privacy and the use of photos or video cam to figure out who messes up their bathroom.
To start with, my view on privacy is fairly....
To start with, my view on privacy is fairly straightforward. Privacy
concerns all acts in your home or apartment and excludes your car and
any financial transactions carried on from your home. Privacy does
include extensions of your home such as phone conversations, emails,
your hard drive files and letters. It does not include Internet
shopping or pizza orders, even it if done from your home. Very little
at your place of business or school is private.
I am only using the classic Greek meaning of the words
private-public. The problems of privacy occur when something you do
in private was purchased in the public market, like a hooker, drugs or
medical care. Generally, since the market is public, the consequences
of those transactions remain tied to the public and are not private.
Therefore I don’t see the privacy question of many issues such as Roe v
Wade but I do see it with private sodomy. The only really tough calls
are with behavior in private that result in public consequences such as
child abuse. That is a very tough call, for me.
Back to Starbucks bathroom, I would be satisfied if the Starbucks at Laurel Village had a video cam on the outside of people entering the bathroom, posted a note on the bathroom door saying what they are doing and why and had a camera on the inside bathroom ceiling that captured an image of the floor in between customers when there was no movement in the room. They could easily find the person making the mess without any record of other behavior in the bathroom.
What is your reaction?