Are you watching me: the right to stalk
Tamara Thompson, over at the PI News Link, has coverage of a case out of the Michigan Supreme Court upholding a private investigator’s ability to watch people and follow them around in the face of a challenge alleging that such snooping amounted to a violation of Michigan’s anti-stalking law.
The court concluded the surveillance by licensed private investigators serves a legitimate purpose and was not stalking under the law. Tamara says : “We perform information gathering in legal cases for the purpose of establishing the legitimacy of a claim, not to intrude or make contact that creates emotional distress. But that hasn’t stopped the litigious!”
I am not sure the issue is quite so clear. If I do it, its stalking, but if I hire a professional to do it for me and report, it’s legal?
Link to the case.
January 29th, 2005 11:21
If I hire a professional to do it “in legal cases for the purpose of establishing the legitimacy of a claim,” then yes, there’s a difference. I’m with Tamara on this one. Privacy doesn’t mean impunity. Investigators have to be able to attempt to find out what people are hiding. And I’d rather have someone with even a modicum of training and professional ethics doing it than somebody’s jealous boyfriend or angry relative.
I’m not a PI, but I’ve performed oppo and/or defensive research now in 68 political campaigns over the last 11 years. I don’t use tactics like “tailing” people or looking through their trash, though I’ve known a couple who do. But I’m as concerned as Tamara about balancing concerns for privacy with the need to maintain the ability to investigate for legitimate reasons — e.g., they’ve been accused of committing a tort (or criminal offense), or are running for public office and require prior vetting.
There’s a bill right now to strip birthdays out of voter registration files in the Texas Legislature. The concern is out of privacy, but if you did that you’d have dead peopole, children, felons, and God knows who else voting, or worse, have people stripped off the rolls as felons who shouldn’t be. A lot of public information out there about people exists for a reason, and there are legitimate public needs to keep it open. Nobody likes a snoop, until you need one.
January 29th, 2005 11:42
I forgot to mention, I never had a coach beat me for losing, but in junior high in Tyler, TX maybe 25 years ago, I remember a coach punishing a bad performance — during HALFTIME! — by making select bad performers do full-throttle “tackling” drills on a 3-foot wide oak tree. So the punishment was ultimately, in theory I guess, self-inflicted. I didn’t have to do it, but it sure looked painful. And humiliating.
January 29th, 2005 12:49
Scott, I strongly agree with you on this one. My point is not that PI should not be able to do their jobs, but that the stalking laws are ridiculous, as are most of the other provisions aimed at protecting us from people knowing who we are and what we are up to.