Hell yeah!  If you want to have highly personal conversations about your life on a plane which a) is a public place and b) WHERE PEOPLE CAN'T GET AWAY FROM YOU, you deserve what you get.

I disagree. Even though the conversation was in a public place and conducted loudly enough to disturb others, the conversation was not intended for public consumption. It was intended to be between this woman and the person on the other end of the call no matter how easy she made it for others to eavesdrop or to avoid doing so. On a public phone or on a phone in public, you still have some expectation of privacy.  The anchored public phone created a sphere that let us know that a private conversation could be overheard if we drifted too close; mobile phones move that sphere to the seat beside us. That doesn't eliminate the need for us to be respectful of public conversations and their participants -- even if they are loud, even if they are annoying.

Photographing the person talking is uncivil. If you wanted to post the conversation as an example of something that was overheard in public and loathsome, fine. But the image of the person?  It serves no purpose that the text would not. And it invades this woman's privacy more than listening in on her conversation because it anchors to this particular person.

I'm surprised that anyone would try to justify this. Are you really suggesting that each person in public loses all expectations of privacy. I can see the paparazzi following a celeb and taking pictures, but  suggesting this follows for anyone in public even if her public business serves no public interest amazes me?

Then, why not allow the phone companies to publish transcripts and tapes of any conversation they can prove occurred in the public sphere?  And why not supply the persons' names along with the tapes and transcripts to anchor them to only the persons who said them?

I wouldn't say this Orwellian, since the government isn't involved, but I do find it distasteful.

"Are you really suggesting that each person in public loses all expectations of privacy."

Um, yes.  That's why it's called being in "public."  You can't be searched without reasonable suspicion by the government (and you can't be physically assaulted by private actors), but if you are shooting your mouth off, you get what you deserve -- whether it's recording, photographing or other forms of pillory.