[Program Note: I know the big health "summit" was today, but I'm going to let reactions percolate before commenting, so I just wanted to say up front that you'll have to tune back in tomorrow if you're looking for that sort of thing, sorry.]

Today, instead, I'd like to take a look at a few privacy issues, and a monumentally stupid resolution in California (which, thankfully, is intended to be only symbolic, but still...).

The first privacy issue comes from an interesting story earlier this week about how some states are considering banning the release of recorded 911 emergency calls to the public (or -- more to the point -- to the press). This is an interesting First Amendment hair to split, because a reasonable case can be made both ways.

On the one hand, sometimes these calls become important evidence in crimes committed, and evidence in trials is on the public record. The media folks also make the case that if it not for their watchfulness, incompetent 911 operators (including one who fell asleep during a phone call) would never be exposed, which could damage the public.

On the other hand, these are -- by definition -- the most stressful times in people's lives. People don't call 911 to chat. People calling 911 are vulnerable and discussing very private matters (like a medical emergency, for instance). If people have to worry that their calls are going to be broadcast on the radio next week, they will possibly edit their language, or perhaps not even make the call at all. Plus, not all telephone conversations with government agencies are "public record." And we already have ways to hold the operators accountable (a grand jury, for instance) for incompetence. But the main exhibit in the argument for making the calls private is the media itself, which revels in tastelessness when it comes to which calls they deign to use, in their ultimate goal of selling advertising space. If the media had shown proper restraint, these laws simply would not be necessary.

It's an interesting debate. My gut tells me that if I ever had to call 911 for any reason whatsoever, I would want it to be a private conversation. My gut is not the Constitution, however, I freely admit. I also think there may be some middle ground here as well. If a 911 call were used in a court case, I would argue that the call -- recording included -- should be public record. In other words, if the recording of the call itself provided evidence of the crime, then people have a right to hear it. But in all other cases, I would not make the recordings available. Perhaps a transcript could be public, since a mere typewritten dialog simply does not have the exploitable value that a recording does to the media. Perhaps this would be a reasonable compromise between the public's "right to know" (which the media wields like a sword from above), and the dignity of the people on the call (read the article linked to above for some examples of how this dignity is routinely ignored by the media). Compromises of this nature (banning cameras from a courtroom, for instance) already exist in our system of justice.

But my gut on this one goes a lot further than any such compromise. If I talk to a police officer on the phone, my words are not public record. If I go into a police station and talk to someone, it is only recorded with my informed consent (assuming I'm not under arrest, that is). If I have a conversation with a district attorney in their office, it is not recorded. And, to give a precedent, we no longer have public executions in this country for a reason -- to deny the sensationalistic aspects of it to the media. Denying the media the actual 911 audio recordings would seem to serve a similar purpose to me (to be absolutely clear: I am not trying to equate a 911 call to an execution, but only equating the media's handling of both).

The second issue today is the new airport body scanners, which are apparently about to begin operation in a few test airports. These were seen as a "magic bullet" immediately after the Underpants Bomber did his thing last Christmas (mostly due to a well-coordinated lobbying and press relations effort by the people that make the expensive machines... but that's another story).

Now, while some have raised the "privacy" issue over these scanners already, there is a further issue which has not been adequately addressed in this country yet. The media discovered the privacy issue for the sole reason (see: previous discussion of sensationalism) that it allowed them to show footage of seemingly-naked people on television, over and over again -- in much the same way they love to show repeated footage of mammogram images whenever "breast health" can possibly be newsworthy on any given day. In other words, the news didn't suddenly become the A.C.L.U. or anything, they just knew they could get away with more salacious images, the more they "reported" on the privacy issue aspect.

But, media-bashing aside, there is an issue here that the American news media has not discovered yet. I only became aware of the problem because it apparently is a big issue in Britain and in the British news.

The problem is children. Or, more accurately, seemingly-naked images of children. And, more to the point, who exactly would apply for a job which involves looking at naked images of children for a large part of the day. In other words, will pedophiles suddenly have an urge to become T.S.A. agents?

This, while it may sound farfetched, is at least worth worrying about. British law, like American law, is very strict about how it defines "child pornography." Severely strict. So strict, in fact, that in Britain the body scan machines themselves are, technically, illegal. It is illegal to produce any images of naked children, therefore the machines cannot (by law) be used on children. But security law trumps privacy law... or does it? That is the general argument across the pond, as it were.

But what nobody seems to have noticed over here is that American law also is severely strict in its definition. Before the advent of cheap consumer-level digital cameras, everyone took their film rolls to the drugstore to be processed into photographs. And there were numerous cases of "naked baby on the bear rug" type of photos that were turned over to the police. Because while previously laws had defined "pornography" as having some sort of lewd content, new laws were unequivocal -- any image with a child's genitalia in view was illegal. So some parents who had taken innocent baby photos suffered some very harsh consequences.

These stories have mostly faded into the past, since "a roll of film" is becoming an obsolete phrase in common language. No intervention by outside agency is now required to take and print a photograph. But the laws remain.

Now, American law already has a loophole in it, so legally the T.S.A. is probably on firmer ground than their British counterparts. Law enforcement officers (and other government agencies) are allowed to possess child pornography to use in "sting" operations, or for psychological treatment purposes. So there's a precedent for the images from the body scanners themselves not technically being "illegal" the way they may be in Britain (at least, until they pass such a loophole themselves into their law).

But that doesn't address the issue of who will be seeing those images. And who will be applying for such jobs. And that may be an impossible thing to legislate, because it's (on a certain level) trying to screen for "thoughtcrime" -- which may be impossible as well, even if it were possible to legislate.

How do you tell a pedophile from a non-pedophile, when deciding which applicant to hire, in other words? I suppose the T.S.A.'s supervisors could be trained to keep an eye on their employees in order to spot suspicious behavior, but that's about as effective as may be possible to achieve.

I don't have any answers for this problem, personally, the way I was able to offer possible answers to the previous one. But I do feel the question at least needs to be addressed. It will be interesting to see how Britain solves the problem, if they do come up with a workable solution. But we shouldn't wait to see what they do before the problem is discussed here, especially since U.S. airports will soon be using these machines on a widespread basis.

Lastly, I'd like to address a monumentally stupid resolution that just passed the California State Assembly. Hopefully, the State Senate will have the common sense to ignore it, but that may be too much to hope for, I fully admit.

Here is the relevant text, from the state legislative site (search for "Cuss Free" to find it):

WHEREAS, The California Legislature invites the people of this state to take the No Cussing Challenge each year during the first week of March to improve our relationships, to set a tone of harmony and connectedness in our communities, and to inspire ourselves to higher endeavors; now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate thereof concurring, That the Legislature designate the first week of March of each year as Cuss Free Week....

Well, the first idiocy I would note is that they forgot the hyphen, so "Cuss Free Week" can be read as either: "a week free of cussing" or "cuss freely this week." But even if they called it "Cuss-Free Week" it is still nothing but legislative silliness.

Perhaps I am being too harsh. It's a harmless gesture (read the bill) to a kid who started a group at his school in order to promote more polite language. It's hard to be against that sort of thing, really. But while written in the flowery language of "let's give someone a high-falutin' pat on the back from the state government" the concept itself is completely ignorant of the First Amendment these guys are sworn to uphold.

Imagine if this effort really took off, and an actual law was passed banning "cusswords and foul language." The first thing to do would be to define the terms. Which would prove contentious, if not downright impossible.

Because what children call "cusswords" are not all alike. Neither, for that matter, is what adults call "foul language."

The childish term "cuss" as in "cussing someone out" or "cusswords" or (shudder) "Cuss Free Week" derives from "curse." Now this can mean a lot of things, right off the bat. Several of which are protected speech. Someone practicing a religion, for instance, that accepted the concept of curses as a valid religious activity would immediately fall afoul of the law, due to its inherent unconstitutionality.

Even banning Christian "curse words" -- what the law would assumably also be addressing -- would run smack into the First Amendment. Now, "damn" and "dammit" have long been accepted in movies and on television (see: Gone With The Wind and Star Trek for initial usage), but the quite-similar-linguistically "Goddamn" is still verboten, at least on the airwaves of broadcast television.

Then you get into words that describe body parts, or bodily functions. Most of these are a hangover of snobbery, however (further reading: a column I wrote tracing this back to 1066 and the Anglo-Saxons). This argument can be summed up as: Germanic-based words (those notorious "four-letter words") equals "bad." Latin-based terminology ("clinical" terms for the same body parts and functions) equals "good," or at least "acceptable in polite society."

Also, one has to wonder who would select the body-parts-and-functions list, children or adults? There are some terms children use for these things and actions which would be incredibly amusing to see drawn up in any sort of official governmental list (the following words are banned: pee-pee, doodoo, tinkle, wee-wee... et cetera, ad hilariam).

Then there are a whole class of "cuss words" which are, essentially, calling someone an animal of some type. Many of these are considered "strong language" while not being somehow "profanity," such as calling a law enforcement officer a "pig." But there's a whole class of these which, in certain situations, are acceptable, but when used as epithets are not (bitch, cock, pussy, ass, jackass... etc.). And then there are ones which are used in light jokes, but in no way are ever considered cusswords, even by kids (snake, ape, dog, goat, minx, weasel, fox... etc.).

Considered obsolete, but worth a mention is actual "profanity," or "profane speech." Saying "Christianity is wrong, and Jesus is not the Son of God" would have, at one point, gotten you burnt at the stake in much of Europe. Now, you'd get invited on a chat show to debate with a church official, more likely.

And then there is the "slur" aspect of "cusswords." These can be ethnic, racial, sexist, genderist, and a whole bunch of other '-ist' categories to boot. The only problem with trying to ban these is that people have been fighting this fight for a long time now (see: "political correctness" circa the 1980s), mostly without much impact. This would be a long list of words indeed for the government to define, and due to the changing nature of what is considered offensive, would need constant updating.

Now, I admit I'm making a mountain out of a molehill here. This is just one of those things governments do where they print something up on fancy parchment that some group or another can hang in their clubhouse. Usually these types of things are utterly harmless. And the language used is also not nearly as blatantly unconstitutional as I've made out (because it was more fun that way, I fully admit). But the principle involved is a lot more important than a kid trying to encourage his schoolmates not to "cuss," at least during one specified week.

The principle is: the government should not concern itself with infringing the Bill of Rights. It is silly to attempt, even in seemingly-harmless fancy proclamations. It is, in fact, unconstitutional to attempt in any way. Meaning state legislators should spend their time on other things. In absolute defiance of the spirit of the resolution, I herby take the Cuss Week Pledge -- while I normally shun using such language in public, if I see any state Assembly members next week (not very likely, I admit), I promise to use the foulest language I can think of -- to their face -- to describe how I feel about their wasting their time in this fashion. In other words, I will exercise my First Amendment rights by cussing them out, freely.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant