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Stripping Bankrupts From Digital Memories and Emotions |
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Unfortunately, in recession time many people go bankrupt. As part of bankruptcy procedures, administrative agents have the authority to garnish property to cover the bankruptcy procedure’s costs. Recently, bankruptcy administrators in Israel started seizing bankrupts’ personal computers so to be sold to cover bankrupt’s debts. One of the unfortunates who went bankrupt recently, started a public campaign against his hard drive’s seizure. Seizing the hard drive, he claims, deprives him from his personal recordings, stored memories and pictures, personal contacts info and private e-mails. He is considering bringing a law suit to declare the unconstitutionality of the seizure based on his rights to dignity and privacy (recognized by the Israeli Basic Law: Human dignity and liberty).
In an era when the personal computer becomes an extension of one’s self and a primary tool for human interactions and memory-storage, a clear limit should be drawn to seizure of the computer to cover debts. The hard drive gradually replaces our neuron-based-recollection and pieces of our personal information environment are archived in bits. Seizing personal hard drive to cover a commercial debt is a cruel and unreasonable mean and should be illegal. As One can not strip a person from his memory and emotions, One cannot deprive a person from his digital memories and archived emotions which are stored in his hard drive. An hard drive is not just a property and the law has to acknowledge that! If the rights to dignity and privacy means something, an hard drive can not be seized to cover debts.
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Re: Stripping Bankrupts From Digital Memories and Emotions (Score: 0) by Anonymous on Tuesday, March 11 @ 15:33:05 EST | Can you say "backup"? The individual in the article doesn't care about the drive itself, he cares about the contents, so he should have the contents archived someplace. What would he have done if the drive failed? Started a campaign to make disk crashes unconstitutional? Sorry, but I'm not sympathetic. |
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Re: Stripping Bankrupts From Digital Memories and Emotions (Score: 1) by Kim on Tuesday, March 11 @ 15:34:10 EST (User Info | Send a Message) http://weatherall.blogspot.com | A hard drive is a thing - it is property. It is the information - the memories, contacts, and emails for example - that pertains to dignity and privacy. When I leave my job I leave my computer behind, but I burn CDs of the stored information. Not quite the same but a close approximation that protects the interests of both myself and my employer. Similarly with the bankrupt - couldn't the information be downloaded? The only thing that tends against this argument, in my view, must be that given obsolescence rates, the hard drive is unlikely to be worth much (if it is worth much, it is probably new and has less information on it?) - and hence the interests of the creditors are weakened relative to the interests of the bankrupt.
I agree that it is hard to draw a line between the thing, the hard drive, and the information stored on the thing. But surely some accommodation can be reached via portable stored media? |
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Re: Stripping Bankrupts From Digital Memories and Emotions (Score: 0) by Anonymous on Wednesday, March 12 @ 12:43:36 EST | A good parallel to this situation would be if a bankruptcy court could seize photo albums from bankrupts instead of monetary remuneration; the value of the photographic paper pales in comparison to the value of the memories that are recorded.
Additionally, photographs can be reproduced from the negatives once the bankrupt is “back on his feet”, so to speak. This is analogous to “backing up” the computer’s hard drive. Of course, when the data is backed up the bankrupt cannot enjoy it (because the hard drive would be subject to seizure), in much the same way as he cannot enjoy memories recorded photographically from photographic negatives.
A better argument may be that a person cannot live one’s life without a PC. I find this to be a dubious argument, but it may work if we point out that the state doesn’t (typically) seize one’s only mode of transportation. We could apply an analogous argument to say that one cannot take away one’s only means of communication and productivity. Of course, this is likely to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
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