Private Life

Homelessness for Stupid People

The foibles of the most pampered homeless population in the Bay Area...

I was watching my friend Ricky's bags the other day. They were sitting on a bench next to the one I sat on and this woman comes up with a camera, points it at his stuff, and takes pictures.

“What do you think you're doing?” I asked her. She tried to make some excuse that she was having an event or some such BS and I proceeded to make it pretty clear how rude I thought she was. Was it rude? Yeah, I think so. Was it a violation of Ricky's privacy? That's a bigger question...

Various people have complained to me about how I had violated their “Right To Privacy” with what I'd posted in my blog... which I found insanely amusing considering everything I've written of had been done publicly. No, Judy, you were not the only one to whine about it. You were just the only one who exceeded 300 decibels doing it...

Serendipity is a funny thing. It was a couple of days later I sat in Tommie's Cafe having one of those interesting conversations with Yvonne's Pet-Man Pat... he's the silver haired guy with the James Earl Jones Baritone voice, and we're meandering through all kinds of topics the way dogs will follow rabbit trails, and we come to the issue of privacy.

“I don't have any,” I told Pat.

Pat looked at me in his characteristically thoughtful mode for a moment before acknowledging that it had to be true.

But I started reading up on Privacy following my conversation with Pat (the guy tends to force me to do that... not knowingly... but he's always got something on his mind that sends my mind through half a dozen loops... conversations with Pat are always compelling)

Now, the American Civil Liberties Union will tell you that a combination of amendments to the U.S. Constitution create the right to privacy (the do not “protect” but “create” the right, which I found interesting all by itself). They make great effort to mishmash together the 1^st Amendment Right to Assemble, the 4^th Amendment Protection against Illegal Search and Seizure, the 5^th Amendment Protection against Self Incrimination and the 14^th amendment rights to Due Process and Equal Protection... heady stuff...

If you think arguments supporting the “Right to Privacy” are ambiguous and difficult to understand at best, you'd have a lot of company. The foundation for most of those arguments were originally published in the Harvard Law Review in 1890 as “The Right to Privacy” by Brandeis and Warren. The document mostly concerns the press publishing gossip and scandal, but its influence on legal attitudes cannot be denied. No court ever supported the Right to Privacy before its publication.

But the Warren and Brandeis work spoke of protecting “the privacy of private life”.

I should remind everyone that what you do in public cannot be labelled “private.”

Warren and Brandeis attempted, in their interesting wisdom, to disconnect “Privacy” from “Property.”

Well guess what... when you are homeless, you're not propertied! Everything you do is subject to someone's observation. Nothing, and I mean nothing you do is private! You are always subject to some intrusion by anyone walking around the corner.

Yes, folks, it's one of the reasons homeless people are different from most of the rest of you. The smart ones are cagey and suspicious of strangers. When someone new is hanging about suddenly that raises hackles. That, of course, is about instinct bread of experience.

I'll use myself and my good friend Ricky as an example here, simply because we both have jobs, we both have all our belongings attached to our bicycles, so we live in a similar fashion.

At any given time, the police can arrive and find an excuse to go through our bags. LPD did that to me once. It was annoying, but I survived. Had to refold my cloths. But I did get rid of a lot of accumulated useless crap, so they actually did me a favour... Was that a violation of the Illegal Search and Seizure clause in the 4^th Amendment? I'm sure the ACLU would think so, but they'd probably have a difficult time making the case. It was not a pleasant experience, granted, but I don't have any porn in my bags, or anything else to be embarrassed about... (well... dirty skivvies...)

Neither one of us, Ricky or me, have a reasonable expectation of privacy just based on the fact that we're both homeless, and we both have to engage in some “odd behaviour” that will raise suspicions. That's one of the reasons I'm thankful that there are some police on LPD who at the very least recognize me. One pair found me one night and said “I know him, he's all right...” (and went on to mention Mark Watters... who is a whole other story I should tell at some point...) That offhand comment kinda made my week...

If you google “Illegal Search and Seizure Homeless” you'll mostly find instances of local governments clearing homeless encampments. The ACLU would have you believe this is always illegal. The City of Livermore has done this several times each year, and they always give reasonable warning, often three days, for the homeless to clear out. At that point, they will clear an encampment. It's one of the reasons I don't have one.

But the biggest reason has to do with that lack of privacy. Having people know where you sleep is never a good idea. Those days when I am observed by unwanted eyes, I leave. I can do that. Mobility is a skill I carefully cultivated.

When everything you do can be observed, it will be observed.

If you're homeless, or you think you might be homeless, you have to get over it and live with it. You have no recourse to protect yourself from it except to remember it always.

I'm still ticked about that woman with the camera... I may not have a right to privacy, but I sure as hell have a right to free speech!

Lady, that was just rude!