[Vision2020] Thought Police: Re:Senator Larry Craig Challenges Guilty Plea

[Ted Moffett]

Ted Moffett questioned:

If the police officer was sitting in the stall clothed, what invasion of
privacy occurred if someone gazed at him through the crack in the door?"
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Tom took this question out of context, and applied it to a context and
situation for which the question was not meant to apply, privacy rights in a
private home, when he questioned:

Are you suggesting, Mr. Moffett, that it is acceptable to "gaze" from
outdoors into somebody's bathroom as long as either nobody is there or if
somebody is there, they are fully clothed.

-------

Let's explore my question, and Tom's statement below, in the context my
question was supposed to apply, a police sex sting operation in a public
restroom:

Tom Hansen  wrote:

"In my opinion a person situated in a public restroom stall is entitled to
the same degree of privacy against on-lookers as if (s)he were in a bathroom
at home."
-------------------------

In a bathroom in a private home, laws regarding privacy protect the privacy
rights (including protections from outside view) of someone who invites
someone else into their bathroom for sex.  This level of legal protection
for privacy does not apply to a public restroom, thus a public bathroom
stall is not accorded the same degree of protection on privacy rights as a
private home bathroom; and in the case under discussion, a sex sting
operation conducted by police in a public restroom, it is misleading to
imply this context applies to a private residence.  Police sex sting
operations are not conducted inside private bathrooms in private residences.

If the police officer gave signals that could publicly be viewed in this
public bathroom, that his presence in the stall was to seek an "encounter,"
and remaining fully clothed in the stall was part of this game of signals,
Craig's alleged gazing at a fully clothed person in the stall in this
context, a context that might be interpreted as police "entrapment," is not
the same situation as someone gazing at a half naked person in a bathroom
stall, a situation for which the privacy of a bathroom stall is intended,
and should be respected, of course.  Public bathroom stalls should offer
full privacy from outside view, even to a innocent glance, when the door is
closed.  But they often do not.

Everyone understands the difference between being viewed naked or fully
clothed as to the degree of having their privacy violated.  As everyone with
a full respect for civil rights understands that private homes are just
that... private.

Ted Moffett
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