Public vs Private (Was: Re: Violation or Protection?)

[lwp@conch.aa.msen.com (Lou Poppler)]

On Wed, 31 Jul 1996 18:50:38 -0700, tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) wrote:
} At 11:51 PM 7/31/96, Blanc Weber wrote:
[ re: searches of visitors to "Centennial Park" in Atlanta ]
} >But if the park was a private one, would it make any difference?
} 
} Of course, which is why stores can have "bags will be searched" policies,
} restrictions about atire, and all sorts of other policies which are not
} allowed in public places.
} 
} Disneyland is a private park, and has rules which are not the rules a
} public park can have.
} 
} Put it this way, "My house, my rules."
 
As with anything, there are gray areas and boundary cases in real life 
where this is not as clear-cut as in the private/public examples TCM
has provided us in the past.  Let's look at a couple of fuzzy examples.

Years ago, I worked for a company which operated a chain of movie theatres.
A group decided to picket in front of several of our theatres.  One of the
theatres was right downtown, with the front of the building about ten feet
from the street, separated only by the city sidewalk.  Everyone agreed
that this sidewalk was clearly public, and the company couldn't control
what the picketers did on this public sidewalk.  Later, this same group
moved their picketing to another of our theatres, across town.  Here,
the theatre sat in the middle of a large parking lot, with no sidewalks
between the parking lot and the street, but a sidewalk right in front
of the building.  It seemed pretty clear that this time the sidewalk
was private property -- the company owned the entire lot, including
all the parking, the sidewalk, and the building.  On the advice of the
company's attorneys, the manager called the City Police who escorted
the picketers off the property.  The picketers took the company to court,
and won a judgement allowing them to return and requiring the company
to apologize.  The judgement was upheld on appeal -- the case mostly
hinged on the fact that there was no other reasonable place for them
to picket, since there was no sidewalk at the public street.

Another fuzzy gray area would be the common areas in shopping malls --
the large corridors outside the stores, with fountains and park benches
and payphones and trees and public performance areas.  These spaces 
are the evolutionary replacement of the urban downtown public spaces.
Yes, they are technically private property, and the property owners
are careful not to jeopardize that status, with carefully worded public
signage, and detailed procedures for their rent-a-cops' dealings with
the members of the public.  Yet at the same time, the management also
carefully cultivates the image of their common space as the cool place
for trendy young people to want to gather.  Various skirmishes are 
occasionally fought over such questions as soliciting petition signatures
or giving out free printed information in these spaces.  

This is a market-driven mutation of the notion of common spaces, away 
from the publicly-owned town square, toward the corporately-owned.
TCM's mention of Disneyland is right on target.

} > I mean, either it is, or it isn't, a "right".   When could it really be
} >okay to violate that definition.  How are the law enforcers to do their
} >job if they can't intrude into your shopping bag, when it's a critical
} >National Emergency.  This is what Denning is always referring to.
} 
} One needs to distinguish "rights" vis-a-vis government actions, and the
} policies of private actors. The usual point about "freedom of speech"
} applies. E.g., Blanc has "freedom of speech," but not inside Microsoft.
} 
} Not to lecture, but this frequent blurring of public vs. private areas, of
} government vs. corporate actions, of "property rights," is  hurting the
} cause of liberty.

This is true in perhaps more ways than those so far discussed.
The cause of liberty is broad: it embraces Mr. May's freedom to run his
hypothetical business by his own rules, dictating what his employees may
and may not do using his computers and firing them if he doesn't like
the color of their tie; it also embraces the freedom of surly youths
and old codgers to hang out somewhere, up to no particular good and
espousing unpopular or pig-headedly-wrong opinions, frightening horses
and small children.  

The "frequent blurring of public vs. private areas" is partly due to
fuzzy-headed thinking by the public at large.  It is also partly due
to deliberate blurring by powerful & cynical forces whose causes are
furthered by the resulting confusion and by the incremental restrictions
on unapproved liberties.  A corporation might see more revenue and 
decreased repair/security/PR costs, if they can reduce the number of
teenagers skateboarding and smoking cigarettes outside their doors.
An ambitious citycouncilman or district attorney might see more favorable
publicity and advancement to more powerful positions, if they can control
irritating protest rallies and disagreeable eccentrics impairing the
"quality of life" in their jurisdictions.

One direct means to this intentional "blurring" is the current trend of
"privatizing" various government activities.  A city-owned public library
is open to basicly anyone (or recently at least anyone who can prove they
are a resident of that city).  A privately-operated public library may
and will exclude undesirable persons arbitrarily.  A state park is open
to basicly anyone, with few restrictions on what is illegal activity
therein; a Disney-operated private theme-park is a quite different.

Expect more of this privatization, in more areas of life.
For example, in East Lansing the Downtown Development initiative has
"revitalized" a couple blocks of downtown:  what was formerly a parking
lot and a small city park and a few decayed storefronts, is now a shiny
new hotel/commercial complex complete with a "fountain square" containing
some benches and sidewalks and trees.  The catch?  Fountain Square is 
owned by the hotel, and anyone named by hotel security guards as
undesirable is removed therefrom by the city police for trespassing on
private property.  Gone is the former city park.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: It is much easier for an arbitrary
:: Lou Poppler <lwp@mail.msen.com>  :: intelligence to pass the Turing Test
::      http://www.msen.com/~lwp/   :: via email rather than via live chat.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::