Charlie Sheen is HIV positive

[OttoVonBismarck]

You are right, I don't understand that as it isn't true. Strap on a condom and have a low cell count/viral load and you are unlikely to infect anyone. Similarly, you aren't very likely to infect someone if you have oral sex, unless their mouth is full of open sores.

I don't generally define oral sex as "sexual intercourse", ala Bill Clinton. But you shouldn't be deciding this risk for other people--disclosure gives them the choice to decide it for themselves.

So you take out a strawman against you and then build one for me? To clarify, if a person is deliberately trying to infect people and fails, I think they should still be punished (not by an HIV specific law) but just by laws that prevent you from trying to harm others. However, many yahoos in this thread seem to suggest that the moment you (as an HIV+ person) have sex with someone but don't tell them your status, you are deliberately trying to infect them.

I viewed it as a subset of cases which could occur under the aegis of "non-disclosure" sexual intercourse incidents. If you're saying that for this subset you support legal action, then okay. But like I said, I believe these laws were created precisely because traditional reckless endangerment statutes were not sufficiently robust to be applicable to relatively new concepts like exposing someone to an STD.

Actually the UN report I referenced notes this is an issue and is part of the generally arbitrary nature of when this cases are prosecuted.

I don't care at all about the UN, literally nothing they say or do has meaningful value to me. The U.S. justice system features the concept of prosecutorial discretion, so there is always an inherent reality that you can call it arbitrary when a case is brought to trial or not. I don't think we should stop writing new laws just because prosecutorial discretion exists.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It's really bizarre to me how strong European "privacy rights" are, when they have weaker property and free speech rights than the United States. I personally just don't value privacy rights very highly, I think there should be a default state of privacy from government. But anything you disclose to others (such as corporations) I don't really feel there should be legal privacy other than in the form of contract law if the corporation agrees to protect it and then fails to do so you would have cause of action. I also have no problem with government infringing on the privacy right regularly for purposes of public policy.

As long as you're secure in your possessions, protected from investigatory actions by the warrant requirement, and have the rights to free expression I don't really see a lot of value in overly-rigorous privacy rights. Maybe my view is mainstream in America and that is why privacy isn't nearly the issue here that it is in Europe.

I will also say that maybe the younger group here are jumping on russel a little too quickly, when I got married we had to do the blood test (it's no longer required in this State), and to be honest I know that it was a pretty standard thing in most states at that time. A lot of them were repealed very rapidly in the 90s as they were seen as an "old school" outdated practice from the turn of the century.

[alfred russel]

Actually Montana seems to still require blood testing for rubella immunity on part of female applicant though you can instead sign a waiver to bypass testing. Oh and DC gov says they don't need it.

So the reality is that our resident 'truth teller' has misled us again.  There is potentially one state that requires blood testing but a requirement you can sign a waiver to get past doesn't really sound like a legit requirement.

Hah. Judging from his post, it would seem like at least a sizeable minority of states require that and it is a growing trend. 

Dorsey never changes.

So I wasn't up to date on lots of states doing away with the requirement. The point remains: it has been required by a number of states in the past, which gets to some point about a right to disclosure/invasion of privacy and what is allowed and permissible.

[alfred russel]

Actually Montana seems to still require blood testing for rubella immunity on part of female applicant though you can instead sign a waiver to bypass testing. Oh and DC gov says they don't need it.

So the reality is that our resident 'truth teller' has misled us again.  There is potentially one state that requires blood testing but a requirement you can sign a waiver to get past doesn't really sound like a legit requirement.

Crap, man, I thought you were going to make it two years without responding to me. Such a silly topic on which to throw away such a long streak. 

[Valmy]

He was not responding to you, he was responding to me

[garbon]

He was not responding to you, he was responding to me

[alfred russel]

He was not responding to you, he was responding to me

You did toss a question out there, but you don't think he was trying to refute what I said in his post? After all, I don't think he meant you when he mentioned the "truth teller".

[Eddie Teach]

Perhaps he's taken lessons from the way grumbler "ignores" Raz.

[crazy canuck]

It's really bizarre to me how strong European "privacy rights" are, when they have weaker property and free speech rights than the United States. I personally just don't value privacy rights very highly, I think there should be a default state of privacy from government. But anything you disclose to others (such as corporations) I don't really feel there should be legal privacy other than in the form of contract law if the corporation agrees to protect it and then fails to do so you would have cause of action. I also have no problem with government infringing on the privacy right regularly for purposes of public policy.

As long as you're secure in your possessions, protected from investigatory actions by the warrant requirement, and have the rights to free expression I don't really see a lot of value in overly-rigorous privacy rights. Maybe my view is mainstream in America and that is why privacy isn't nearly the issue here that it is in Europe.

I will also say that maybe the younger group here are jumping on russel a little too quickly, when I got married we had to do the blood test (it's no longer required in this State), and to be honest I know that it was a pretty standard thing in most states at that time. A lot of them were repealed very rapidly in the 90s as they were seen as an "old school" outdated practice from the turn of the century.

I think your view of the importance of privacy laws (or rather the lack thereof) is outdated and doesn't reflect the amount of information now routinely and easily gathered about individuals.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It's really bizarre to me how strong European "privacy rights" are, when they have weaker property and free speech rights than the United States. I personally just don't value privacy rights very highly, I think there should be a default state of privacy from government. But anything you disclose to others (such as corporations) I don't really feel there should be legal privacy other than in the form of contract law if the corporation agrees to protect it and then fails to do so you would have cause of action. I also have no problem with government infringing on the privacy right regularly for purposes of public policy.

As long as you're secure in your possessions, protected from investigatory actions by the warrant requirement, and have the rights to free expression I don't really see a lot of value in overly-rigorous privacy rights. Maybe my view is mainstream in America and that is why privacy isn't nearly the issue here that it is in Europe.

I will also say that maybe the younger group here are jumping on russel a little too quickly, when I got married we had to do the blood test (it's no longer required in this State), and to be honest I know that it was a pretty standard thing in most states at that time. A lot of them were repealed very rapidly in the 90s as they were seen as an "old school" outdated practice from the turn of the century.

I think your view of the importance of privacy laws (or rather the lack thereof) is outdated and doesn't reflect the amount of information now routinely and easily gathered about individuals.

Please, I'm not some white hair unfamiliar with the word around me, I'm a technological trailblazer. I just don't actually think nonsense people spew out into the internet is very important from a privacy perspective. I view the Internet as fundamentally not a private place, akin to a public street. If I wear a shirt out in public that says "I have a fetish for goats", then that's not private. If I put that out on the Internet, that's not private. If I want something to be private, I don't say it in public places or share it publicly, and I'd be upset if the government came to it without a warrant. But if the government in some large sweeping surveillance effort accumulates embarrassing data about me that I freely put on the Internet (which they'd likely never look at anyway), that's on me.

[DGuller]

When it comes to privacy, technology matters.  While there may not appear to be a difference between expressing your sexual preference for goats on the street or on the Internet, the fact that Internet has a far better and much more easily accessible memory than the collective memory of people on the street should factor into privacy protections.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Eh, I don't buy into that, and never will. So take it as you will. Public to me is public.

I might be amenable to an argument that where technology approximates private analog communications those too should be private. Email should be seen as like to personal letters, which the government cannot just open. But posts on Facebook, a message board--and even more importantly online news articles are not venues that should be privacy protected.

I think in part because I was an early use of the internet, back when it wasn't used for much commerce or business but was primarily just for information sharing, games, low res porn jpgs and gifs I never bought into the illusion that younger people have that the internet is a virtual extension of your living room just because you access it from there.

[DGuller]

Eh, I don't buy into that, and never will. So take it as you will. Public to me is public.

I might be amenable to an argument that where technology approximates private analog communications those too should be private. Email should be seen as like to personal letters, which the government cannot just open. But posts on Facebook, a message board--and even more importantly online news articles are not venues that should be privacy protected.

I think in part because I was an early use of the internet, back when it wasn't used for much commerce or business but was primarily just for information sharing, games, low res porn jpgs and gifs I never bought into the illusion that younger people have that the internet is a virtual extension of your living room just because you access it from there.

I guess it's a difference in philosophies.  Becoming a user of Internet in the age when the amount of data exploded makes me realize that what matters is not what data may exist out there somewhere, but what data is easily accessible.  What is not reasonably accessible for all intents and purposes does not exist, except in cases of very focused investigation.  And on that account, what can be seen on the street and what can be seen on the Internet aren't in the same ZIP code.  They aren't even on the same continent.

[Razgovory]

I'm sure it was criminalized because of the sensationalized fear of the 80s/early 90s HIV epidemic in America that's largely quieted down when we basically made it a chronic condition by cycling retrovirals. That doesn't mean it's bad law--it may mean the legislature responded to a panic, but that's largely a function, not a bug, of representative democracy. To me it's an example of good law that should be expanded to other STDs.

This is good law for people who do not understand how HIV infection works.

Maybe you can tell us how you think HIV infection works.

I already did in this thread. So did garbon.

I was hoping for something a little more honest.  I remember a discussion with Derspeiss where he mentions a type of fire arm isn't "that deadly", which means of course if you get shot with it there you will be badly wounded and may die.  In this situation wearing a condom doesn't mean you can't spread and contract HIV, to which you said

(first of all, you could be using a condom; secondly, if your cell count is very low, you are creating no actual danger of infection;

This is a falsehood.

[viper37]

No, it isn't that at all. Again you are saying that if someone with HIV has sex with someone who doesn't have HIV, they suddenly are doing something wrong. I don't see why that is the case if they have taken adequate precautions. It shouldn't be a crime not to disclose your medical history. What happened to right to privacy? That evaporates when you contract HIV?

Blood tests before marriage have long been required by at least some states. There are limits to the right of privacy.

That would be considered a massive violation of privacy in Europe. It's unthinkable.

This is for France:

Un certificat médical prénuptial datant de moins de deux mois à la remise du dossier. C'est votre médecin qui procédera à cet examen clinique en vous envoyant faire une prise de sang pour déterminer votre groupe sanguin, ainsi que des tests pour déterminer si vous étes immunisée contre la rubéole et la toxoplasmose en cas de grossesse. Votre conjoint devra lui aussi faire une prise de sang pour déterminer son groupe sanguin et son rhésus, afin de connaitre les éventuelles incompatibilités avec vous en cas de grossesse. Enfin, il vous proposera aussi un test de dépistage du sida non obligatoire.

A prenuptial medical certificate dated within two months of receiving the file . It is your doctor who will conduct this clinical exam by sending you a blood test to determine your blood type, as well as tests to determine if you are immune against rubella and toxoplasmosis in pregnancy . Your spouse will also do a blood test to determine blood type and Rh , in order to know what activities are incompatible with you in case of pregnancy. Finally, it will also offer you a non-mandatory AIDS testing.

I think this still exists for Quebec.