[Air-L] public private

[Ed Lamoureux]

>>
>> On Aug 10, 2007, at 12:54 PM, Conor Schaefer wrote:
>>
>>> More to the point, the concourse of a mall is by my definition
>>> completely public.
>>
ed wrote:

>> and this would absolutely wrong and total nonsense, at least in
>> America. In American, EVERY mall is private property and is
>> specifically posted as such. No one may do research within them
>> without the express written consent of the mall owners.

DLB wrote:
>
> Hm, well, not completely true. In some states, malls are public  
> fora for
> purposes of the state constitution -- the right to expression  
> overrides the
> private property interest in those cases. The point being that it is
> dangerous to draw parallels between physical spaces and virtual  
> spaces,
> something many of us have written about.
>
> DLB

Ed wrote:

Don is right in that I overstated the "every" . . . there are  
exceptions as there are differing state laws AND there are different  
kinds of malls.

However, there is also a difference between free speech rights  
(rights to expression) and laws that apply to doing private work  
(like collecting research data). I won't argue over whether there are  
some limited exceptions. I will, however, continue to note that MANY  
malls ARE treated, both by their ownership companies and by the  
jurisdictions in which they do business, as private real estate in  
which property interests and the rules owners set ARE the controlling  
feature and collecting data without their consent is specifically  
prohibited.

I also think that Don is right "that it is dangerous to draw  
parallels between physical spaces and virtual spaces".
My response to Conor was intended to note that the assumption that  
mall=public is NOT the default condition in many places in America.  
Sorry to have overstated the case.


Edward Lee Lamoureux, Ph. D.
Associate Professor, Multimedia Program
and Department of Communication
Co-Director, New Media Center
1501 W. Bradley
Bradley University
Peoria IL  61625
309-677-2378
<http://slane.bradley.edu/com/faculty/lamoureux/website2/index.html>
<http://gcc.bradley.edu/mm/>
AIM/IM & skype: dredleelam
Second Life: Professor Beliveau