Privacy v. Justice

William Saletan at Slate argues that the benefits of having video and audio in evaluating legal disputes (in court or out) outweigh the privacy concerns raised by the possibility of everyone and everything being recorded. As he says, "privacy, broadly interpreted, can shield injustice."

Saletan's big mistake is assuming the absolute certainty of video--"with video, everyone knows." Only after everyone had seen the Ray Rice video did the NFL "know" what happened. And because everyone else "knew," the NFL lost deniability and Rice lost what Saletan calls the "presumption of innocence." But, as I have written repeatedly, video is not that certain and we do not necessarily know in every case or with every video. Some video is clearer or easier than others. Rice seems especially obvious (although the video is grainy and one looking to see mutual aggression might see her moving towards him for reasons that cannot be known from the video). But not every video will be so clear and thus not every video case will be so easy.

Which is not to say that Saletan is wrong about the privacy/justice balance; I think he has it right. But the reason is that this provides additional evidence with which to evaluate (in court and out) disputes controversies--and more evidence is better than less. But it still is a mistake to rely on the idea that video is unquestionably, always, and in all cases conclusive.