On January 6, Canada’s  CTV ran a story on package theft in Montreal West, a Quebecois suburb. “Porch piracy” — grabbing parcels left at doors by delivery services — isn’t just a Canadian problem, of course. It’s become endemic in prosperous western societies, particularly in densely populated areas with front doors located at convenient dashing distance from streets and sidewalks.

What perked ears around the world in this particularly story, however, was a cautionary note from Quebec’s provincial police, telling victims not to post doorbell camera images or video of porch piracy to social media.

“You cannot post the images yourself,” said police communications officer Lt. Benoit Richard, “because you have to remember, in Canada, we have a presumption of innocence and posting that picture could be a violation of private life.”

But is going onto other people’s porches and stealing their stuff really a “private” activity?

And does recording (and, if one chooses, sharing) what happens on one’s own property, or on “public” property visible from one’s own property, violate anyone’s reasonable expectation of privacy?

I’d answer “no” to both questions, and I suspect you would as well.

Furthermore, presumption of innocence is a concept for judges and jurors in court proceedings, not a ban on people collecting and sharing information that might later be used to challenge the presumption.

For the sake of argument, however, let’s accept the claim that running off the sidewalk, climbing the stairs of your porch, grabbing the box from Amazon with a new pair of shoes you ordered as a birthday present for your mother-in-law inside, and running away is, all else being equal, a “private” activity which you’re not entitled to record or publicly comment on.

It seems to me that all else needs to be made explicitly unequal … and there’s an app for that — “terms of service,” so to speak.

Some enterprising entrepreneur should sell little plaques for  prominent display at front gates or on porch rails:

NOTICE: ENTERING THIS PROPERTY CONSTITUTES A WAIVER OF ALL RIGHTS, INCLUDING PERSONAL PRIVACY RIGHTS, WITH RESPECT TO PHOTOGRAPHS, VIDEO RECORDINGS, OR AUDIO RECORDINGS ESTABLISHING THEFT, PROPERTY DAMAGE, OR OTHER CRIMINAL ACTIVITY.

Maybe a shorter version would work, but you get the picture (see what I did there?), as will any would-be thief.

If such plaques make their way to market at a reasonable price, I’ll certainly order one. And display it, if it doesn’t get stolen first.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Financial Times reports, “is proposing to cap overdraft fees at as low as $3, potentially saving consumers billions of dollars a year and stepping up US President Joe Biden’s war on so-called junk fees ahead of the 2024 election.”

The simple version, for those unfamiliar with overdraft fees:

You have $100 in your bank account. You write a check or swipe your debit card for a purchase coming to $101. Instead of bouncing the check or declining the debit transaction, the bank covers the overage (bringing your account balance to $-1) and charges you an additional fee (putting your account even more into negative territory). Later, when you deposit your $500 paycheck, your account balance goes up not by $500, but by $500 minus that dollar overdraft and the fee.

The “problem” of overdraft fees (which can indeed be onerous — the Indiana Business Journal says they averaged $26.61, and could go as high as $39, last year) has always had two simple, easy, and long-used solutions.

The first such solution is for customers to not attempt to spend more  money than they have in their accounts.

The second is for banks to decline overdraft transactions.

In fact, many if not most banks already offer “no overdraft checking accounts” which inform the customer up front that overdraft transactions WILL be declined.

An even simpler explanation of overdrafts: They’re instant loans from your bank, and the fees are service and interest charges on those loans.

Don’t want to pay those service and interest charges? Don’t borrow the money. If you don’t trust yourself to not borrow the money, open an account that won’t LET you borrow the money. “Problem” solved.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether the CFPB’s mission is to actively and intentionally make life harder for poor people (as with its war on “payday loan” operations), or whether that’s just a side effect of good-hearted but idiotic and unnecessary ideas. Even though I oppose giving the CFPB any power whatsoever or even allowing it to exist at all, I’m going to generously start from the latter premise here.

Some people occasionally see a need to overdraft their accounts. Maybe rent comes due on the first of the month, but a paycheck isn’t going to hit until the third of the month, and an unexpected emergency room bill put the customer in a cash crunch situation.

Capping overdraft fees may seem helpful, but will actually result in more banks simply not allowing overdrafts at all — in the rent hypothetical described above, likely costing the customer more  due to late fees owed the landlord.

The cap proposal won’t “protect consumers.” It’s about pretending to protect them for political gain, but working to their actual detriment.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In January of 2022, Lulu Cheng-Meservey — at the time, Vice President of Communication for Substack, though she’s since moved on to a similar role at Activision Blizzard — wrote on Twitter (now known as “X”):

“At Substack, we don’t make moderation decisions based on public pressure or PR considerations. An important principle for us is defending free expression, even for stuff we personally dislike or disagree with. … We want a thriving ecosystem full of fresh and diverse ideas. That can’t happen without the freedom to experiment, or even to be wrong.”

Not quite a year later, Substack finds itself losing writers, and likely bleeding revenue, in a “can’t win for losing” scenario.

In November, The Atlantic alleged the existence of “scores of white-supremacist, neo-Confederate, and explicitly Nazi newsletters” on the Substack platform.

Since then, Substack has gone from defending Ms. Cheng-Meservey’s position to taking action against such content based on the “hate speech” prohibitions in its terms of service, in the process pleasing virtually no one.

Some content creators are leaving because they don’t want to share a platform with content they deem offensive. After all, they might find themselves tarrred with guilt by association.

Others are leaving because they don’t trust a platform that lets public pressure determine its content policies. After all, they might eventually turn up on the list of targets themselves.

Of course, the word “censorship” keeps popping up to describe any and all refusals by platforms (including Substack) to let users publish whatever they damn well please.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: It’s not “censorship.” Censorship involves government force, intimidation, etc.

If I tell you you can’t sing “Auld Lang Syne,” period, I’m trying to censor you.

If I tell you you can’t sing “Auld Lang Syne” at 3am in my living room, I’m just setting terms for use of my living room, and you’re free to go sing it on the nearest streetcorner or at your local tavern’s karaoke night event.

While I’m completely OK with the latter (in fact, I have a side gig moderating comments at a popular web site based on guidelines that forbid, among other things, “hate speech”), I don’t like the idea of platforms setting guidelines, but enforcing or not enforcing them based on public outcry.

Yes, Substack has a financial bottom line to guard. And yes, that may mean making hard decisions. But operating in obedience to a “Heckler’s Veto” is probably a bad business decision in the long term, and it’s damaging to public discourse — in the same way as real, i.e. government, censorship —  in the short term.

Substack needs to decide whether it’s an open platform or an activist-curated walled garden. It can’t be both.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY