Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should Know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always is
Speaker 1: one Charles W. Chuck Bryant. He's a good guy. Which
Speaker 1: one are we doing? Oh? You're doing privacy. That's how
Speaker 1: Lucy played here people Lucy goosey sometimes. How you doing great?
Speaker 1: How are you? I'm good. I think we're both pretty
Speaker 1: pumped for these two subjects today. Yeah, mainly I'm pumped
Speaker 1: about putting out a decent episode for once once in
Speaker 1: your life. I hope we do. I probably just chink this,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna overthink it. No, no, no, no, this
Speaker 1: is great. It's gold. Here we go there, Chuck. Yes,
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of something called death Switch? Is
Speaker 1: it a movie? Nope? Was it a band? No? Should be?
Speaker 1: I think kill switch is a band, uh and a thing,
Speaker 1: maybe even a fail safe um. But death switch is
Speaker 1: a service, an Internet service that you or I or
Speaker 1: any schmo with even a dial up connection can go
Speaker 1: uh get Okay. There's a free version of it where
Speaker 1: you can insert one email address in one message, and
Speaker 1: then there's a premium version where you can do up
Speaker 1: to thirty email addresses and all this other stuff. But
Speaker 1: the point of it is this, you set up all
Speaker 1: the stuff you want to say to people after you're dead.
Speaker 1: Whether it's like, you know, see you in hell or heaven? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well yeah, I guess it depends on your disposition or
Speaker 1: your bent um or you know, I love you, just
Speaker 1: wanted to tell you one last time, or freaking you
Speaker 1: out right that think, yeah, this is I know what
Speaker 1: you did that kind of thing. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: with the premium service you can attach things like movies
Speaker 1: and things like that, so you can be like, hey,
Speaker 1: here's one last bootleg. I know you always like my
Speaker 1: pirated movies, so here's one more, you know, but like right,
Speaker 1: and you would have it sit to me every day
Speaker 1: for the next years. Right, Well, I think it just
Speaker 1: goes out once. But um, the point is you you
Speaker 1: you create all these emails and then Death's which sits
Speaker 1: on them for you secured like they're secured, and then um,
Speaker 1: on a fixed schedule, they send you an email saying, hey,
Speaker 1: click this link and put in your password, like basically,
Speaker 1: are you still alive? Exactly UM, And if you don't answer,
Speaker 1: it does it again and again and again, and then
Speaker 1: you know, there's a set amount of times where it
Speaker 1: starts to really kind of pepper you, like, hey man,
Speaker 1: we're about to like, you know, the big yeah that
Speaker 1: that your boss is gonna get that email if you
Speaker 1: don't do this, And then it goes, Okay, you're dead.
Speaker 1: You're either dead or you're in a coma, or you're
Speaker 1: just you're critically incapacitated, can't even ask for a computer. Um,
Speaker 1: And here you go and it sends out your emails
Speaker 1: for you, which is pretty cool. And I think it's
Speaker 1: cool that everyone, anyone gets one free message from this company.
Speaker 1: You can do one email, one email address, with one message,
Speaker 1: no attachments or whatever, for free at death switch dot com,
Speaker 1: which which I owe no shares for a stake or
Speaker 1: any kind of financial interest, hope not. How much is
Speaker 1: the premium service? I don't know what am I like?
Speaker 1: Your am I? Your Google? You know, let me google
Speaker 1: that for you. So the point is, um, death switch
Speaker 1: is kind of the service that straddles the line of
Speaker 1: what we're talking about today, which is privacy after death,
Speaker 1: because they maintain your privacy while you're still alive, and
Speaker 1: then after you're dead, the whole point is to go
Speaker 1: blab whatever you want to blab right for the very
Speaker 1: least after you don't return their email. But the presence
Speaker 1: of death switch and the whole service that provides actually
Speaker 1: falls squarely on one side of Um. What's kind of
Speaker 1: a pretty big, uh moral philosophical, ethical discussion I'm finding
Speaker 1: after researching this, and that is whether or not you
Speaker 1: do have any right to privacy after you're debt um?
Speaker 1: And I thought this was a pretty good this is
Speaker 1: it was the grabster who wrote this article, so of
Speaker 1: course it's quality. He should get paid extra for this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we should at least get to meet him. Yeah. Now
Speaker 1: I emailed him a while back and was I mean
Speaker 1: early on it was like, hey, that's right, he leave
Speaker 1: me alone. Who are you pod? What? Yeah? Um, so
Speaker 1: the grabster wrote this article, you know it's quality. Um
Speaker 1: and uh. He makes a really good point right out
Speaker 1: of the gate, like to understand whether or not we
Speaker 1: have any privacy right after we're dead, Let's first investigate
Speaker 1: the privacy rights we have when we're alive. Good way
Speaker 1: to go about it. And they are both at once
Speaker 1: sweeping and attenuous. That's a good way to put it. Thanks. Well, Uh,
Speaker 1: the Constitution, if you're going to talk rights of American
Speaker 1: citizens at least no better place to start. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: it says in the Constitution everyone has the right to privacy. No,
Speaker 1: it does not, doesn't say that in that document or
Speaker 1: the Bill of Rights. But the Supreme Court over the
Speaker 1: years has interpreted the Constitution in such a way that
Speaker 1: it in many cases does provide a right to privacy,
Speaker 1: based on largely Ninth Amendment, which is good. Ninth Amendment
Speaker 1: says that there's probably rights that the framers didn't think of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty broad. Yeah. Fourth Amendment of course, unlawful search and
Speaker 1: seizure my favorite, And the fourteenth Amendment, which is that
Speaker 1: the Feds can't deprive you of life or liberty or property, buddy, right,
Speaker 1: And in the interpretation of liberty, privacy is a major
Speaker 1: aspect of that. Sure. So this has played out, um,
Speaker 1: several times. Anything that's not in the Constitution that can
Speaker 1: be challenged means it's up to the Supreme Court to
Speaker 1: decide what's what, and they have uh, generally sided with
Speaker 1: the rights of the individual to privacy time and time again. Um,
Speaker 1: the government has had the back of its hands smacked
Speaker 1: when it's tried to say, hey, parents, you have to
Speaker 1: do this with your kids education. You can't homeschool them, hippie,
Speaker 1: you need to put them in public schools so we
Speaker 1: can teach them exactly what we want. In the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court side, no no no. Uh. They also um said,
Speaker 1: by the way, you also can't outlaw sodomy between two
Speaker 1: consenting adults. Um. Do you remember that time when there
Speaker 1: was like like sodomy was illegal. Yeah, we were alive
Speaker 1: and sentient. Yeah, Griswold, I'm sorry. Uh. Lawrence v. Texas
Speaker 1: two thousand three, Yes, I know, that's pretty recent. That
Speaker 1: was John Lawrence and Tyrone Gardner were lovers, lovers boyfriend, boyfriend,
Speaker 1: boyfriend and boyfriend. They were committing an active coitus love
Speaker 1: making in the privacy of their own home in the
Speaker 1: bedroom even and it was consentual. It's a big one too,
Speaker 1: very much consensual and uh in a sheriff's deputy uh
Speaker 1: entered the apartment with his weapon drawn because a call
Speaker 1: had been made by their neighbor saying that there was
Speaker 1: someone waving a gun and there was domestic dispute going on.
Speaker 1: So the sheriff goes in there see these two guys
Speaker 1: doing it, and they're like, you're under arrest for doing that.
Speaker 1: And as it comes out later the neighbor he's like,
Speaker 1: do you see this phallic symbol holding in my hand?
Speaker 1: It turns out the name where that had reported this,
Speaker 1: uh was previously in a relationship with one of those dudes.
Speaker 1: It was a false uh false not charge, but what
Speaker 1: do you call it? A false report? And he was
Speaker 1: convicted of fifteen days in jail for making that call.
Speaker 1: Can you believe petty jealousy ended up changing the law
Speaker 1: under the Supreme plan? That is crazy, But they basically
Speaker 1: went to the Supreme Court and in a six three
Speaker 1: ruling they said, you know what, dudes, you can do
Speaker 1: that deed in your bedroom there. Good for you, Chuck,
Speaker 1: good for Texas, Good for Texas, good for the gay
Speaker 1: community as well. Sure there's this great Um, did you
Speaker 1: ever read any Akbar and Jeff comics Matt Greening stuff
Speaker 1: from like Life as Hell? Uh, a New Life as Hell?
Speaker 1: I've never heard of the other? Was that part of
Speaker 1: that part of his to the two guys who looked
Speaker 1: like twins who both wore feathers, Oh yeah, Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was one where it was like they were both sitting
Speaker 1: on the couch together and it said like that they
Speaker 1: were watching the news and it said like from the TV, uh,
Speaker 1: the sodomy has been outlawed, and like they move apart
Speaker 1: on the couch and then they moved back together and
Speaker 1: they go, damn the law. The first case you mentioned, though,
Speaker 1: wash was Meyer versus Nebraska, and that was in nineteen twenty.
Speaker 1: A teacher was teaching German to a student and they
Speaker 1: busted him and arrested him. They're like, you're not teaching
Speaker 1: anyone German. You need to be teaching them freedom language
Speaker 1: exactly a k a American. But he won. And then
Speaker 1: in Connecticut, UH, two people, UH Planned Parenthood director and
Speaker 1: a physician opened a birth control clinic and they were
Speaker 1: arrested for selling contraceptives. But that was overturned, right, so
Speaker 1: they're siding with the people. So those are those are
Speaker 1: cases of privacy, you know, basically based on what you
Speaker 1: do in in your own home or what you do
Speaker 1: in your own educational system. UM business not so much
Speaker 1: because you can't you know, you can't refuse the right.
Speaker 1: You can't refuse service to somebody based on like their
Speaker 1: skin color anything. Yeah, but you can sell contraceptives minute,
Speaker 1: you totally can. You can sell contraceptives to anybody you want. Um.
Speaker 1: But there's there's those are those are all based on
Speaker 1: the idea that it's what you're doing in your own home,
Speaker 1: it's your own private business, that kind of thing, right. Um,
Speaker 1: But there's actually an act. There's a federal act that
Speaker 1: says you have privacy, especially when it comes to government agencies.
Speaker 1: And that's the Federal Privacy Act, appropriately named of nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four that came about at the time when people
Speaker 1: were just starting to figure out what computers are capable of.
Speaker 1: They're like, wow, those punch cards can do this, and uh,
Speaker 1: they the public realize that, wait, there's databases now, and
Speaker 1: you don't have to walk all the way across Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. To get my file, which means you're not
Speaker 1: gonna do that, So I'm safe. Now, you can cross
Speaker 1: reference things from agency to agency, and my information is
Speaker 1: just up for grabs way more than it ever was before.
Speaker 1: So in response, the federal government past the Federal Privacy
Speaker 1: Act of nineteen seventy for which basically says you can
Speaker 1: go up to the E p A. And be like, hey, Feds,
Speaker 1: I want to see my file and they have to
Speaker 1: show it to you. What's interesting is it certainly doesn't
Speaker 1: cover them getting the information for that file. No, it
Speaker 1: just covers the dissemination of that information. And if you
Speaker 1: walked up to the FBI and said, hey, fed, let
Speaker 1: me see what you got on me? Yeah, sure, sure,
Speaker 1: come come in in. Can we get you some coffee?
Speaker 1: Like de Niro And when Lauren Braco comes to him
Speaker 1: at the end, he's like, no, no no, just a little
Speaker 1: further right there, right, see that get you for um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: if the FBI ever offers you a fur, just just
Speaker 1: walk away if you can't. Um. So that was a
Speaker 1: that was a pretty landmark act um. And that's definitely
Speaker 1: one of the in addition to the Supreme Court's interpretation
Speaker 1: of the Constitution. It's it forms a pillar. The other
Speaker 1: pillar UM, strangely enough, came out of the Clinton years. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act HIPPO,
Speaker 1: which you might be familiar with from filling out like
Speaker 1: doctor's forms and stuff. Basically, it's saying like here's the
Speaker 1: HIPPO waiver, not portability, No portability, be weird. Because then
Speaker 1: you could drink it. You can't drink an act. Sorry.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. And that that basically covers medical information, things
Speaker 1: that like your doctor or your insurance provider can can
Speaker 1: disseminate about you. Right. Um. And so you put all
Speaker 1: that together and you have a pretty reasonable right to
Speaker 1: privacy and at the very least to see what the
Speaker 1: Feds have on you, depending on whether their law enforcement
Speaker 1: or not. So if you are alive, these are the
Speaker 1: rights that are afforded to alive and a member of America,
Speaker 1: American family right a card carrying remember the moment you
Speaker 1: die though, that that Privacy Act, the Federal Privacy Act
Speaker 1: in four is like you're dead to me. You no
Speaker 1: longer are. You have no rights whatsoever under my umbrella. Ella. Ella.
Speaker 1: That is true, explicitly says so hippa is the opposite.
Speaker 1: It actually extends those rights very plainly to your family
Speaker 1: and says, you know what your family can uh is
Speaker 1: now in charge of this, and it's completely transferred. The
Speaker 1: permission for information sharing is given completely to them. Right.
Speaker 1: The the um the whole aspect of well, it's your state,
Speaker 1: it's part of your state. Uh. The the basically the
Speaker 1: right to say Yeah, that person can have access to
Speaker 1: this medical and for that medical information whatever that passes
Speaker 1: to the survivor. So HIPPA is real strict federal privacy.
Speaker 1: It's like you're dead. HIPPA is like, yeah, you'll live
Speaker 1: forever it can. It's called descendant or there's a there's
Speaker 1: a um descendency of the right. It's a descendible right.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. And so too is something called the right
Speaker 1: of publicity. Yeah, this was pretty interesting. Yeah. So there's
Speaker 1: this thing that came out of the nineteen fifties when
Speaker 1: um baseball stars uh started saying like, hey, wait a minute, man,
Speaker 1: I I'm not that hip with this guy coming out
Speaker 1: and taking my picture and you know, setting it on
Speaker 1: tops and then tops making money. I should be able
Speaker 1: to make some money. That's my picture. And everybody went,
Speaker 1: but these are just baseball cards. Yeah yeah, And then
Speaker 1: afterwards somebody, you know, one of the baseball players, said no,
Speaker 1: they're not there's more to it, and everybody said, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe you're right. We give in baseball star. So that
Speaker 1: out of that came the idea of the right to publicity,
Speaker 1: which is a celebrity somebody who can make money off
Speaker 1: of their image, their likeness, their identity down to you
Speaker 1: or you down to Like Einstein's identity is owned um
Speaker 1: actually by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and willed it
Speaker 1: to him. And most people's identities are managed by their state.
Speaker 1: And when you're talking about famous folks, right, there's also
Speaker 1: a company called um CMG Worldwide out of Indiana, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Their their business model is collecting right to publicity, like
Speaker 1: drying them off of estates or managing them for states.
Speaker 1: But basically their their thing is licensing the identity of
Speaker 1: a dead person. So, um, do you remember wasn't it
Speaker 1: like a course commercial or whatever? And John Wayne was
Speaker 1: in it? Uh? I remember that? Might I sort of
Speaker 1: remember that? But I definitely remember Fred Astair was in
Speaker 1: a Dirt Devil, Yeah commercial like dancing with the Broom.
Speaker 1: Right now, if he or the Broom became in the
Speaker 1: Dirt Devil, I think that was the deal right now,
Speaker 1: his if his family exercises the right to publicity of
Speaker 1: his estate, um, their devil paid to use his likeness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish I would have remembered to look that up.
Speaker 1: I can't remember which way that one went because there
Speaker 1: was a stink over it. Well, the thing is is
Speaker 1: likely even if you are big on privacy right, um,
Speaker 1: your right to publicity is tack si bowl. So even
Speaker 1: if Fred's Fredis stairs Air said no, he wanted to
Speaker 1: rest in peace, he didn't want to do any more dancing,
Speaker 1: especially now c G I dance, and he just wanted
Speaker 1: to be dead, they likely did charge for that rather
Speaker 1: than just granting permission, because they have to pay taxes
Speaker 1: on the right to publicity whether they use it or not.
Speaker 1: Do they figure that, I don't know. I think that
Speaker 1: might have been gene Kelly. Actually, come to think of it, No,
Speaker 1: I think it was Fredi Stair. I'm picturing gene Kelly. Huh, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, will eventually know. Maybe gene Kelly was the broom. Ye,
Speaker 1: gene Kelly was always the broom to Fredis Stair. It's
Speaker 1: not fair. Uh. It varies And actually in most of
Speaker 1: the world the right of publicity does in at death,
Speaker 1: but in the US it's a state law issue, and
Speaker 1: um New York it terminates at death. But other states
Speaker 1: like Tennessee, Washington, and Indiana, which governed the rights of
Speaker 1: Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, and CMG is based out of
Speaker 1: India and a probably no accident. They say the control
Speaker 1: of the identity is secured for a term from ranges
Speaker 1: from like a hundred years to forever, right, which is
Speaker 1: really interesting. And like we said, it's the person's image,
Speaker 1: it's their likeness, it's their identity. And like the Hebrew
Speaker 1: University of Jerusalem sued um some costume maker for creating
Speaker 1: out a wig and a mustache that was, you know,
Speaker 1: based on Einstein. Well did they call it the Einstein though?
Speaker 1: Probably because I went wig shopping the other night? I
Speaker 1: really did for l c POS playing a come as
Speaker 1: your Favorite rock Star party, so we're like, well we
Speaker 1: gotta be dressed up as well. So we went wig
Speaker 1: shopping and they had that's where And this was before
Speaker 1: we knew we were even doing this podcast. They had
Speaker 1: wigs that were clearly people living in dead but they
Speaker 1: were just named something different right now, like shock Jock
Speaker 1: was the Howard Stern. They had an Amy winehouse one
Speaker 1: called the rehab wig. She see now her family probably
Speaker 1: just doesn't aware of that. I'm sure they would have
Speaker 1: a lawsuit on their hands. They could sue an American
Speaker 1: cord if it's an American company. Um, see if you
Speaker 1: can guess top hat rocker Edgar Winner. Ah, that's good
Speaker 1: slash who slash, of course. But what was funny was
Speaker 1: among this wall of wigs of thinly veiled names, that
Speaker 1: was a snooky wig and it was snooky yeah, with
Speaker 1: her face on it. So she was like, sure, I'll
Speaker 1: take money make a wig. Yeah, well, yeah, wouldn't you
Speaker 1: if you were snooky? I'd do it if I was chuck. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's the right right to publicity. That and the
Speaker 1: hip of protection are descendable rights. So it's passed along.
Speaker 1: And Einstein, his estate makes seventy six million dollars a year.
Speaker 1: They did in the last five million, five years, oh
Speaker 1: five combined. Yeah, but that's that's a lot. That's an yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's I'm Stein, and like I knew Elvis and
Speaker 1: Hendricks and those guys, and like, actually Marilyn Monrose in
Speaker 1: the public domain energy, Yes she is. And there's a
Speaker 1: there was a fight over that the California tried to
Speaker 1: um basically pass like a lover boy law. It just
Speaker 1: made up that term, but it makes sense. Where they
Speaker 1: said that everyone has to work for the weekend, everyone
Speaker 1: has to wear bandanas. Um, where they said, like Marilyn
Speaker 1: Monrose estate is part of the right to publicity as
Speaker 1: a descendable UM thing. Uh, And I guess somebody didn't
Speaker 1: want that that way, and they went to the trouble
Speaker 1: approving that. Um. She was a resident of New York
Speaker 1: at the time of death, so t s well. And
Speaker 1: it's it's fortuitous that you mentioned Monroe, or maybe I did,
Speaker 1: because autopsy photos come into play here, and her death
Speaker 1: photos arguably among the sexiest death photos of all time.
Speaker 1: Probably autopsy photos of generally and murder scene photos have
Speaker 1: been generally protect did Ah from release When someone submits
Speaker 1: for the Freedom of Information Act and says, hey, we
Speaker 1: want to see these photos, and the courts have generally
Speaker 1: says no, you know what, you can't right well with
Speaker 1: Freedom of Information Act, that's this thing, that's this um
Speaker 1: spearhead into the heart of hip and the Freedom of
Speaker 1: Privacy Act because it's this catch twenty two. It's like
Speaker 1: the government is tasked with if they're going to gather
Speaker 1: information on you and keep it, they have to protect it.
Speaker 1: It's your privacy. But government also has to be transparent.
Speaker 1: And somebody asks about that your information, the government has
Speaker 1: to give it to them under a Freedom of Information Act,
Speaker 1: unless again, if it has to do with law enforcement,
Speaker 1: they're just gonna turn you down out right. But on
Speaker 1: a case by case basis, it's usually decided whether or
Speaker 1: not they're gonna grant it, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: they kick it to the courts and let the courts decide,
Speaker 1: And there have been some big ones. Usually the court
Speaker 1: rules in favor of rules against the freedom of information,
Speaker 1: especially when they feels like there's going to be harm
Speaker 1: to the family. Yeah, if it's harmless or if it's
Speaker 1: been like many many years, they might allow it. But uh,
Speaker 1: the one that that the Grabster mentions in here was
Speaker 1: the Vincent Foster case, who was the attorney who killed
Speaker 1: himself in nine who worked for the Clintons or the
Speaker 1: Clinton administration, And uh, he was no, he was I
Speaker 1: think a Whitewater guy too. He was like the Clintons
Speaker 1: for a while. Well, when he committed suicide, there were
Speaker 1: photographs of the scene and they were not made public.
Speaker 1: So conspiracy people filed an fo I a whatever report
Speaker 1: you have to fill out, and said we want to
Speaker 1: see these photos, and they said no. Yeah. Apparently the
Speaker 1: guy still managed to get four polaroids released, which was
Speaker 1: an effort. Yeah, um cold for him. If you want
Speaker 1: to spend you're well a full day at least, just
Speaker 1: go ahead and type in Vince Foster. I'm sure click
Speaker 1: on what really happened? Dot com, um thing on it.
Speaker 1: It's it's extensive, exhaustive, I'm sure um so, yeah, they'll Earnhardt.
Speaker 1: More recently, was you know he crashed and killed, was
Speaker 1: killed and at the dayton of five. Did you r here?
Speaker 1: He apparently died like flipping off the guy who like,
Speaker 1: uh really who spun him out? Yeah, that's what I heard.
Speaker 1: It's a nice way to go out at last. Screw you, buddy.
Speaker 1: Uh they uh. Florida courts rejected um the plea to
Speaker 1: release those photos in the newspaper and the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: they said, you know what, we'ren't even gonna entertain this case.
Speaker 1: Bye bye. Yeah, Florida's Florida passed a law, another lover
Speaker 1: boy law, for to prevent these these photos from being released.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a lover boy law. I was silent
Speaker 1: because I was scanning my prank for another lover boy line,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't make it one, um chuck. Even more
Speaker 1: recent than Dale Earnhardt's death, that whole kfuffle over his
Speaker 1: death photos. UM, well, there's been a couple, but one
Speaker 1: was the News of the World phone hacking scandal. I
Speaker 1: don't know about that one. Okay, let me let me
Speaker 1: enlighten you to the despicable nous of what News of
Speaker 1: the World was capable of. Anne was doing for a while.
Speaker 1: The world is UM. It's a it's not weekly world news. Yeah,
Speaker 1: r I p that that was. It's not UM, it's
Speaker 1: a news Core, which is Rupert Murdoch owned UM paper
Speaker 1: that's now under It was headed by a woman named
Speaker 1: Rebecca Brooks and she's now gone. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: News of the World is gone because of all this.
Speaker 1: They were hacking, like the voicemail accounts of like everybody,
Speaker 1: the royals, celebrities. But the one that was really just
Speaker 1: really awful, UM was the voicemail of a third ten
Speaker 1: year old girl named Millie Dowler who in two thousand
Speaker 1: two went missing. While she was missing, this is a big,
Speaker 1: big news in England. UM, News of the World had
Speaker 1: some private detective hack her voicemail and we're listening to
Speaker 1: her voicemail messages and the mailbox was full, so they
Speaker 1: started deleting them so that people could leave more if
Speaker 1: if possible, so they could hack more in report on more.
Speaker 1: What were they trying to get? Just any information they
Speaker 1: possibly could because the girl was still missing. She was
Speaker 1: dead at the time, but now trying to get clues.
Speaker 1: They were trying to get more leads. A full mailbox
Speaker 1: and a dead girl who's not getting her mail isn't
Speaker 1: going to help anybody as far as news of the
Speaker 1: world was going. So they just deleted some after they
Speaker 1: listened and written stories on them, trying to get news
Speaker 1: story leads, not all stories like. No one had any
Speaker 1: idea they were doing this, so the girl's parents thought
Speaker 1: she was still alive and was deleting her email or
Speaker 1: her voicemail. Um, yeah, so it was a very big deal.
Speaker 1: It also threw off the cops too, that they hindered
Speaker 1: the investigation. So everybody who has anything to do with
Speaker 1: that has now been executed by the state in Great Britain.
Speaker 1: That brings up a good point though, is this stuff
Speaker 1: a crime and uh exhort It depends on the law. Um,
Speaker 1: Hippa actually does enforce criminal penalties if you knowingly share
Speaker 1: medical information like selling Madonna's paps Mere for instance. You
Speaker 1: could be put in jail for that. I almost just
Speaker 1: did a spit take a genuine one that happened. No,
Speaker 1: it was in it was in the movie Slacker. Okay man,
Speaker 1: that was close. But a bet stuff like that does
Speaker 1: happen for sure, um more often than not, though they'll
Speaker 1: there will be civil penalties instead of criminal ones, and
Speaker 1: you won't be going to jail. But you can slander
Speaker 1: someone after death, you can, well, depending on what state
Speaker 1: you're in, they don't call it slander. You can what
Speaker 1: you want after death. It's it's well, there's anti defamation
Speaker 1: laws in like California is one state that was the
Speaker 1: only state I could find. In most states it's like, no,
Speaker 1: you can say whatever you want about somebody after they
Speaker 1: they've died. But there's something of a movement toward getting
Speaker 1: anti defamation laws in place for the deceased. And based
Speaker 1: on this philosophical debate like can you harm a dead person?
Speaker 1: What do you think? What's your opinion? Uh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It seems like it would be a nice thing for
Speaker 1: your privacy rights to extend after death, but I mean
Speaker 1: in the in the name of respecting the dead right,
Speaker 1: But so in the US, you've noticed, like most of
Speaker 1: the court cases were they were looking out for the family,
Speaker 1: the survivors. This this is about like the person, the individual.
Speaker 1: Even people who like you don't know any of the survivors.
Speaker 1: They lived long enough ago that no one has any idea.
Speaker 1: But the whole basis of it is that like through
Speaker 1: our lifetime, through our life's work, our accomplishments are reputes nations,
Speaker 1: we build this thing that's called an identity, a legacy,
Speaker 1: and it survives us after death. And that's what can
Speaker 1: be defamed. And that's how you can harm a dead person,
Speaker 1: if you believe that you can harm a dead person.
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of the basis of the drive
Speaker 1: to get people on board, like, hey, let's all just
Speaker 1: be nice about dead people. But well, and in the day,
Speaker 1: in this day and age of the electronic life, your emails,
Speaker 1: your Facebook account, like it brings up a whole different
Speaker 1: can actually, can I tell you a really really sad,
Speaker 1: tragic story. Always speaking of Facebook, I found a old
Speaker 1: friend from twenty five years ago on Facebook by chance,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, I haven't thought of her
Speaker 1: in literally twenty five years. She looks great, how she
Speaker 1: doing center her friend request, blah blah blah. I was
Speaker 1: kind of on her Facebook page and then I saw
Speaker 1: a photo of her with with her kid that said
Speaker 1: and someone said, like a very bitter sweet to look
Speaker 1: at this, And I thought, oh, man, I guess her
Speaker 1: kid must have passed away. That's awful. Scrolled down a
Speaker 1: little more. She had passed away, like two weeks previous.
Speaker 1: This girl of like in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: passed away. I was on her face, had already sent
Speaker 1: the friend request, and I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: And for some reason it just stuck with me for
Speaker 1: a few days. It was I haven't seen her in
Speaker 1: that long, but I was just like, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: there's his Facebook page with pictures everywhere, and hey, this
Speaker 1: was me last week and now I'm not here. And
Speaker 1: then you know, her kids had posted, you know, like
Speaker 1: they kind of took over her account, where people were
Speaker 1: leaving memorial messages and things like that. So and they
Speaker 1: bring up in the article. You know, typically ninety days
Speaker 1: after an inactive account, they'll shut it down. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's Facebook specific, but um well, Facebook apparently
Speaker 1: has a policy in place where if you can prove
Speaker 1: your family member or something like that, they will revert
Speaker 1: control of it to you to basically basically becomes memorial page. Like, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: you mean his friends with d J A M on
Speaker 1: Facebook for some reason. Yeah, so, and she still is
Speaker 1: and his page is now like a memorial page. People
Speaker 1: post on it like a couple of times a day
Speaker 1: every day. Still well, and I think that's what Facebook
Speaker 1: is trying to create here with their whole new system
Speaker 1: that's rolling out, is like, this is your life, yes,
Speaker 1: and we own it. Yeah. Um. If you want to
Speaker 1: know more about basically what we're talking about is whether
Speaker 1: or not you leave a digital legacy afterwards. Stuff to
Speaker 1: blow your mind. Our colleagues Robert and Julie covered that, didn't,
Speaker 1: They have stuff to blow your mind? So you can
Speaker 1: search that UM on iTunes, or you can go to
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow your Mind r s S page
Speaker 1: just by searching stuff to Blow your Mind RSS on
Speaker 1: your favorite search engine. And if you want to read
Speaker 1: this really good article by the grabster um, you can
Speaker 1: search do you have a right to privacy after you die?
Speaker 1: How about privacy after death? In this search bar at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And since I said search bar,
Speaker 1: that means, of course, it's time for a listener mail. Josh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this something you called it, which is
Speaker 1: cult busters. Oh yeah, this is good. I didn't call
Speaker 1: it that the author did. I was at in the
Speaker 1: subject on Yeah. Hey, guys, have a great story for you.
Speaker 1: About fifteen years ago, my uncle's wife passed away from cancer.
Speaker 1: He became disillusioned with his religion. At the time. He
Speaker 1: had a coworker who, in an effort to help him
Speaker 1: cope with his grief and confusion, invited him to attend
Speaker 1: his church. Well, it turned out to be a cult,
Speaker 1: and his coworker was a recruiter. It wasn't exactly a
Speaker 1: destructive cult in terms of violence. There were no drugs
Speaker 1: to get them closer to aliens, no suicides, no murders, etcetera. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're pretty peaceful, polygamous group, following some basic Judaeo Christian principles.
Speaker 1: They didn't all live on the ranch a ranch, but
Speaker 1: they did all live in the same town. When my
Speaker 1: uncle joined, the prophet of the cult gave him a
Speaker 1: wife pretty nice welcome, it's a welcome gift, and put
Speaker 1: him to work. My uncle soon came to be one
Speaker 1: of the prophet's top men. Our family knew that he
Speaker 1: was given several wives, but in his communications with us,
Speaker 1: he would only ever tell us about his first wife
Speaker 1: and his children by her. Fast forward to a few
Speaker 1: months ago. My uncle's daughter is fourteen years old. The
Speaker 1: prophet of the cult ordered his daughter, my cousin, to
Speaker 1: be married to another man in the group. My uncle,
Speaker 1: for the first time in a long time, thinks like
Speaker 1: a normal person and becomes uncomfortable with the situation. He
Speaker 1: had never once questioned what he had been told. He
Speaker 1: never even considered that he was part of a cult.
Speaker 1: He just considered it a small religion. He really struggled
Speaker 1: with this after that. He consumed as much as he
Speaker 1: could from that point about cults in groups like his,
Speaker 1: and among that he actually listened to your very podcast
Speaker 1: about cults. That is awesomely awesome. He realized that he
Speaker 1: was in the very wrong and he had to get out.
Speaker 1: Since he was trusted and respected by many other members,
Speaker 1: he was able to convince many other higher ups and
Speaker 1: lay members that they were also in a bad cult
Speaker 1: and that they had to get out. My uncle and
Speaker 1: many of the others were excommunicated, and the cult now
Speaker 1: numbers the cults numbers now are very much dwindling. So
Speaker 1: I would like to thank you personally for your involvement
Speaker 1: in my uncle's return to real life. I'm sure he
Speaker 1: still would have left the cult, but the extra nudge
Speaker 1: of your podcast was sure to help him along. And
Speaker 1: that is from Anonymous. That is amazing. How about that
Speaker 1: so help busting? Yeah, that was really something else. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not one to begrudge anybody their religious beliefs or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but if we can provide information that
Speaker 1: helps people come to a decision they're comfortable with, I'm
Speaker 1: proud of that done. Yeah, So thank you Anonymous for
Speaker 1: that letter, that very excellent letter. That Uh wow, I
Speaker 1: mean that's like we should have that's legit t shirts
Speaker 1: or something like that. Helpbusters. Yeah. Um, if you have
Speaker 1: a story about how the the podcast stuff you should
Speaker 1: know has helped your life, we want to hear it
Speaker 1: or harmed it. I want it's a good one, just
Speaker 1: just not that, not how it's affected it in no
Speaker 1: way whatsoever, And we don't want to hear about that. Um,
Speaker 1: you can tweet that to us in a hundred forty
Speaker 1: characters are less two s y SK podcast. You can
Speaker 1: write it on Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash stuff
Speaker 1: you should know which will be up for eternity um,
Speaker 1: or you can send us a good old fashioned email
Speaker 1: to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Be
Speaker 1: sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from
Speaker 1: the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore
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