Woman Says Alexa Recorded Private Conversations, Sent Them to Contact in Family's Address Book

This isn't creepy at all.

At Instapundit, "I DO NOT TRUST THE “INTERNET OF THINGS” (CONT’D): Woman says her Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact."

Do Patients Have a Right to Secretly Record Doctors While They're Under Anesthesia for Surgery?

My first response when I saw this story on Twitter was "Never secretly record your surgery!"

Mainly, you might hear some stuff you might not like. I mean, the doctors and the nurses, etc., are essentially on the job, and they might say some politically incorrect things, if not some things even disrespectful to the patient herself.

In any case, at Althouse, "'Patient secretly recorded doctors as they operated on her. Should she be so distressed by what she heard?'":

I don't know about that.

But it occurred to me: Why aren't we entitled to a recording of what is said around our body when we're under anesthesia? Why should you have to sneak a recording device into your ponytail? You have to be knocked out for the surgery, and all these people have access to your vulnerable body, why shouldn't you have a right to use an artificial device to do what your senses would normally do — monitor what's happening to you? Do the doctors and nurses have an interest in having a private conversation around your body? I'd say you have the greater interest in finding out what's happening to you when you're unconscious. Anyone who wants to make a recording should be able to do it openly. You wouldn't need to take any additional steps to improve the "bedside manner" of doctors and nurses...

Keep reading.

Man Shoots Down $1,800 Drone Hovering Over His Sunbathing Daughter

Drones seem so cool, but then not so much.

At WDRB News 41 Louisville, "Hillview man arrested for shooting down drone; cites right to privacy" (via Memeorandum and Reason).

In an Age of Lessening Privacy, Some Family Secrets Persist

Yeah, well. Life's a bitch sometimes.

At the New York Times, "Secret Histories":

After Itzhak Goldberg’s father died in 1995, at age 86, his mother gave him a watch in a red case. The 18-karat gold Patek Philippe was a rare indulgence for his father, a Polish Holocaust survivor who married, moved to Israel and ran a produce business.

As Mr. Goldberg wrote in the online magazine Tablet, when he opened the box, he was stunned to find, tucked in the folds of the guarantee booklet, a tiny, yellowing photograph of two beautiful young women he didn’t recognize. His mother was startled but made no comment. For 17 years, out of deference to her, Mr. Goldberg, now a clinical professor of radiation oncology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, did nothing. But after his mother died, he went looking for the truth.

“I knew my father wanted me to find that photograph,” he told me recently. “He was saying, ‘This is a part of my life, and I want you to know about it after I pass away.’ ”

One truism about contemporary life is that there are no more secrets. In the age of selfies, sexting, Twitter and Facebook, people are constantly spilling every intimate detail of their lives. Video cameras trace our every move; our cellphones know where we are at all times; Google tracks our innermost thoughts; the N.S.A. listens in when we dream. Everything is knowable, if you just know where to look.

But that idea is flawed. Secrets endure. Especially in families...

It's the "age of knowing." (I think that's from an AndroGel commercial, but it rings true in the contemporary culture, as I pointed out last night.)

But continue reading.