Slashdot Mirror
Net Privacy -- Cable vs. Telecom Service
doranb writes: "Carl Kaplan has a good article this week in his CyberLaw Journal. It seems U.S. users who access the Internet via cable modems may enjoy greater privacy protections. About halfway through the article he says: 'That's because the laws governing the cable television industry, the Cable Act of 1984 and the related sections of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 have privacy protections for cable subscribers that make the telephone wiretap laws seem positively pallid. Take a case where an FBI. agent wants to intercept real-time e-mail generated by a cable-modem user. Under section 551(h) of the Cable Act, the government has to secure a court order based on "clear and convincing evidence" that the target may be involved in a crime. That's a higher standard that the "probable cause"" required for a phone tap.' The question becomes: Should the U.S. 'dumb down' these protections to be equivalent to telecom, or should they beef up telecom's protections to be equal to the cable industry?"
Maybe I'm almost on my own but doesn't anyone else think that expecting laws and legislation to protect people's privacy is a bit shallow? I don't like people reading my email, etc, but at the same time I think it's silly to expect that simply asking people not to will stop it from happening.
It's not even security by obscurity, it's obscurity by politeness. Even if government agencies can't monitor traffic, what about the rights of ISP's to monitor traffic passing through their system? Since the Internet is an open system, there's also not much guarantee that an ISP won't on-sell information to the government, anyway.
This is why I think Carnivore and various other privacy issues shouldn't be any more than an issue between an ISP and the government. There can be legislation to prevent governments from monitoring communications, but there's no clean way to enforce it. There's also no clean way to stop non-governement entities from intercepting information.
I think the more fundamental issue is government controls on the use and distribution of things like cryptography. Restrictions on this are a major reason why the privacy infrastructure of the net is hopeless right now, which is the reason why people are so concerned about the government monitoring their net-communications.
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Should the U.S. 'dumb down' these protections to be equivalent to telecom, or should they beef up telecom's protections to be equal to the cable industry?
What kind of question is that?
Should the government take ALL your money or just half
Should you ask your parents before you buy a new TV?
Should I make sure it's ok with my dog before I got to the movies?
Should I pour hot grits down my pants?
Obviously the group that should violate privacy less than any other is the damn gobernment.... THEY WORK FOR US!!! I hate how you always have to remind people that...
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
I think that interception of information, in the form of telephone wiretaps, digital gathering of private email, etc... should be treated exactly like property seizure, no matter what the medium.
Even this has been taken out of context; cops can search for 'evidence'.
The original point of requiring a warrant was that the police (or whoever) would have to say 'Look, we firmly believe based on XX and XX ansd XX that Mr. So-and-so has the following items in his house. If we had these items, we could solve the crime; so the judge would order that they had permission to enter his home and search for and take away these items. Why does a judge need to do this? BEcause.. oroginall, and ideally, *NOBODY* has the right to take anything taht is yours. Nobody. THat's what a warrant is for.
Nowadays, i'ts abused beyond belief.
However your one statement:
I think that interception of information, in the form of telephone wiretaps, digital gathering of private email, etc... should be treated exactly like property seizure, no matter what the medium.
Struck me as ironic. I'll bet half the slashdot crowd is cheering along shouting "Hell Yeah!", and if you look at the whole Napster mess, there is a strange similarity. Can't have it both ways.