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Big Brother To Watch Judges?
One week from today, the U.S. Judicial Conference will decide whether judges and their staff can handle grown-up responsibilities like ... using the internet. No, you did not click onto The Onion by mistake: after heated
disagreement
earlier this year, the issue is coming to a head. Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has
a great Wall Street Journal opinion piece, today only. (It wants your email; try
me@privacy.net.)
Jeffrey Rosen's
analysis in TNR
is another good take on it. If you don't think the men and women who hold people's lives in their hands need daddy and mommy looking over their shoulder, you might take a moment to fire off a quick, polite email
per the EFF's suggestion.
If surveillance can invade a judge's workplace, it's for damnsure
there's nothing keeping it out of yours.
I don't want the government keeping track of what judges do online... I wanna know what congressmen do online. Which sex sites they go to. Which interns they're emailing about affairs. Which corporations they're getting email from. Stuff like that. Judges should be able to take care of themselves. Congressmen are far more expensive to buy.
Every time I read a YRO article, I am reminded of that scene in Dirty Harry. You knw the one. Harry hasjust tracked the killer to his home at the stadium, and as the killer runs away across the field, Harry shoots him in the leg from the sideline. He calmly walks across the field to where the killer is squirming and clutching his knee, then proceeds to interrogate the weirdly effeminate murderer by stepping on the wounded knee.
Instead of revealing the location of the kidnapped girl, the killer repeatedly wails "I have rights! I have rights!"
You guys look like that killer. You're pathetically uncharismatic, you're outclassed and you're in the wrong. I love watching you squeal and moan.
If anybody at all can point out to society how wrong it is to institute blanket surveillance of all individuals using the Internet within a defineable group, it's these tough, liberty-minded judges. In contrast with the corrupt, election-stealing American Supreme Court, these somewhat lower-level judges realize exactly what is at stake here, and they will raise the biggest stink you ever smelled before they submit to this rank injustice from on high. Aux barricades, toute la nation Americaine!
I'm not sure I'd call it a great opinion piece. It's good that someone's taking issue with judicial workplace privacy invasion. It'd be a great piece if he talked to the larger issue of any employee's right to privacy. It's kind of ironic that BOFH policies hit the news with judges, but what about the rest of us?
Well it seems obvious to me that this is an evil plot by the RIAA. They are behind this for a very simple, yet clear reason. Hillary (her name is hilliary, isn't it?) is afraid that judges are going to be surfing the net when they realize how stupid their case is in regards to the DCMA. She's afraid the DCMA will eventually get destoryed and then she has to find a new way to suck money out of the consumer market.
Now I think I'll be getting my morning coffee.
The op-ed article spends some time referring to people who are constantly watched as prisoners, which indirectly implies that its perfecally okay to continue the monitoring the private conversations of prisoners. This in and of itself, creates a problem, as you are divinding up society into two camps. Those who are permitted to be watched at all times, and those who are not permitted.
I should probably address those who will tell me that I shouldn't be defending prisoners. In fact, I would suspect that the first thing people will say is 'Prisoners give up their right to privacy when they break the social contract that our society agrees to', ie, when they break laws. However, not all prisoners are gulity, nor are all prisoners truly that dangerous. Giving a prisoner who commited a minor offense private access to a phone is hardly endangering the community.
Prisoners are people, and judges are people. We should treat all people as much like people as we can. And I think that involves giving them as much privacy as we can. Unless we suspect something hoakey is going on, we should never, ever be permitted to monitor anyone's private messages. If you think a judge is corrupt and you've got some resemblance of evidence, get a warrant, and start listening. If you think a prisoner is trying to hire a hitman to kill a judge, and you've got evidence, get a warrant and start listening. If Joe Prisoner says he wants to call his wife to make sure she knows how to properly do the laundry and just to talk to her, if he's got phone rights, by all means let him have his private time.
By creating artifical lines between humans, and allocating rights to some and not others, a greater divide is created. If judges can't be monitored, but prisoners can, does that mean entry level workers can be monitored for no reason, and CEO's can't? Or does it mean that all criminals (past and present) be watched in the workplace, and no one with a completely clean record?
Why not just make it easy and flat forbid it except in the most extreme of circumstances?
Am I the only one who sees the irony of asking my e-mail address before you show me an article about privacy? Yes, any address works, so it's not nearly as bad as it could be, but still
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Who cares if Federal Judges are surfing the Stileproject to look at kitty cats being stir fried? (yumm, General Tsao Kitty) I am more concerned with the conversations Federal Judges are having in the backrooms. I want their private deals to be made public. Who the heck knows what they are doing and how it affects our freedom. Are we to trust these people with our liberty when they feel they are above the standards of ordinary Federal employees? At least with the other two branches of government, citizens have the ability to directly remove the corrupt. Its almost impossible to remove a seated Federal judge.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
It's the lawyers who need keeping an eye on.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I have a friend who is a circuit court judge. A couple of years ago his IT department began monitoring and limiting his Internet access.
His solution? He bought a dial-up account and had an analog phone line installed in his courthouse office.
Who is watching the watchers?
Who is watching them?
Moose.
Just because you are paranoid, does not mean they aren't out to get you.
Heh, suppose we should point out to the judges that these violations of their rights is brought about by the DMCA/RIAA/MPAA...they might be pirates, and after all judges are guilty until proven innocent like all under the XXAA's bought and paid for laws, right?
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Does anyone know exactly what made this happen? Did someone just wake up one day and say "I don't trust all the judges"? Why do they think that judges need to be monitored (ok, the last question may be obvious, but what evidence do they have as to any wrongdoings that would constitute implementing such draconian restrictions?)
If God gave us curiosity
This reminds me of the Canadian navy guy who was suspended after having been caught surfing pr0n with a navy laptop. After a few weeks of the media trying desperately to rile the public and sell the story, he was quietly reinstated. No one cared, in the end. I suspect the same sort of paranoid forces at work here (although according to the article, it really comes down to one man and politics.) Ah well, at least the judges will proove to be the litmus test of whether communication monitoring in the work place will eventually be accepted as routine (or even American) by our kids.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Cryptome has a posting showing the porn mpg download logs from a court computer. Its a letter from the court's administrative offices to one of the chief judges, giving the IP (and who's assigned to it) of the downloader.
.vbs and maybe other executables, but since mpgs don't (yet) contain virses and trojans horses, they *ARE* safe to download.
The downloads were at lunchtime, but jeeze, there are a lot of downloads. It looks like it was some sort of sharing software involved, by the looks of the filenames and the IP numbers.
The letter is from the adminstrative offices of the court to a chief judge, indicating the IP and registered owner of that IP. The log was captured as part of their "security intrusion detection" system because of the large volume of traffic. Sounds a little funny-- the volume of traffic is going the wrong way to be a massive data leak. I wonder how the judges like this "security" precaution being used to spy on them.
The administrative office goes on to complain about sexually-oriented websites are likely to contain "computer viruses, trojan horses, and other harmful products". First off, the administrator didn't notice that these weren't websites, and second, all the files were videos. A decent security system would have blocked
Sure, I'd be weirded out if someone was doing their thing to porn in the office next door, but it doesn't take a porn download to enable that sort of behavior. Besides, by the quantity of the downloads, it doesn't look like there was much time to view them.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
It'll be interesting to see how Kozinski's fellow judges react. If they can't be bothered to protect their own privacy, we can't trust 'em to protect ours.
If they drop the ball on this one, maybe we should move to an elected judiciary. I've always opposed that, but the federal courts aren't exactly covering themselves with glory (or independence) these days.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
Legally, in the US, if you use a company computer to send email, that company has the right not only to read that email, but act on it. Your boss can bring up emails to boyfriends in reviews, and HR can fire you for posting contrary opinions to the web. As far as I'm aware, nothing prohibits identical behavior regarding phones, or even workplaces.
I may be wrong on this last point, but I think that employers can use surveilance equipment to monitor their employees activities without their knowledge. The best case is that the policy of surveilance must be made clear.
Judges is the US have defended this behavior for years now, and the computer (and phone) related argument is that the equipment belongs to the employer, and activies on them is in their purvue to observe. Let them be watched. I see no reason a judge should get any fairer treatment than the rest of us.
IP is just rude.
Is there any torture so subl
So, how come it's OK for a /. editor to suggest a bogus email address for the WSJ registration, but it's not OK for a /. editor to automatically change the NYT links to be registration-free? Don't both of those actions subvert the normal registration process, and don't they both have privacy implications? It seems like /. should just get a consistent policy on this sort of thing, and stick with it.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Now that would be scary. Imagine if they start to emulate the cast:
Prosecutor: Dammit, the defendant ate my peanut butter again!
Judge: Yeah, he's just so selfish. Maybe I should add an extra two years to his sentence. Hmmm--that way I'll get the bedroom with the balcony.
Prosecutor: Great! Let's go get a latte.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
If the Judges want to take a stand...
Remove all the computers and bring thier own if they still want it. Or better yet back to paper! Install there own phone lines, pay for them from the own pockets.
It this point the Judges will be on that same level as most teachers and sheriffs.
It is important that monitor is done and not done.
To have monitoring done...
We the people, will have the right see what happenes in our courts system.
To have monitoring not done...
We the poeple, are protecting the rights of each person.
For me... NO MONITORING
Everyday, thousands of americans are loosing their rights. For only a $.50 cents a day, about the cost for a cup of coffee, you can help save the privacy of a Judge in your area. That's right, only $.50 cents. So please act now, before privacy as we know it will be lost forever. Contact the EFF at http://www.eff.org
Thank you and God Bless
Linuxrunner
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
I doubt that any /.er would be happy with surveillance at the workplace or otherwise. Common sense and legal prededent (in the interest of privacy, the judiciary should adopt the least intrusive, rather than the most intrusive, means of discouraging Internet misuse. -- TNR Online ) dictate that the least invasive means should be employed when attempting to block abuse of the system.
So, the fact is that the monitoring of internet use is a gross over reaction to something that isn't really a problem at all.
So how is this good for us?
This may be exactly what is necessary to galvanize judges into action in the fight to preserve privacy. Like that guy in The Patriot they may finally fight the threat after it has hit too close to home.
--------
Remember that you are unique, just like everyone else.
Judges themselves being watched may set a disturbing precendent. Loss of privacy may spread to every sector of government. Corporations already basically do this to their employees, but it's still a disputed, fuzzy line. This may solidify their rights in monitoring employees. As corporations and government get more influence over our private lives, we may eventually lose privacy to the point where it exists no more.
Interestingly, though, I think that if this concept spreads to the legislative branch, our reps will not like it one bit. They will undoubtedly try to pass a law preventing government employees from being watched. So in the end maybe this'll turn out in favor of privacy.
Developers: We can use your help.
If surveillance can invade a judge's workplace, it's for damnsure there's nothing keeping it out of yours.
Well, if I could play the role of devil's advocate for a moment:
It is more significant if a judge is surfing for illegal pr0n or warez on the job than some average luser. Is it so wrong to hold the guarantors of justice to a higher standard?
Who guards the guards?
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Yeah it sucks, but there's some delicious irony about the whole thing. One of the arguments used for workplace monitoring is because if a company doesn't block certain sites it can open it up to litigation -- i.e. sexual harrasment, etc. When the courts say that a company can be held accountable (i.e. cough up mondo $$$) for the actions of one of its employees during company hours, and the civil definition of what constitutes harrasment is murky at best, companies take a "ban it all/monitor it all" mentality.
Imagine, for a sec, that the judges only used government material for work related issues.
In this case, the monitoring is even scarier. Based on the judges' private communications, sites visted, things like that, anyone with access to the log files can begin to recreate the judge's state of mind DURING the case.
Imagine what happens when this gets into the wrong hands. There are some very creative journalists who can take small bits of nformation and blow them out of proportion. We learn that people are likely to be convicted before the trial is complete. We learn that people who appear to be guilty are going to walk. And worse, we learn this because of things that the judges has said and done, rather than just speculation (as it is now) How much harder will it be to keep an untainted jury? Besides, if we know what the judge is thinking, why have a jury?
Yes, it's an exaggeration, but it's frightening to think that the scenario they are trying to achieve is actually worse than finding out which judge has what fetish...
People keep telling me that Sweden is about 10 years after the states, so that means that in 10 years we will begin to face the same problems here in Sweden. So I really hope that you guys in the states manage to convince your politicians and whatnot that privacy is a good thing so that we dont have to :)
My ongoing complaint about the YRO articles is that whatever is currently being proposed is always ridiculed in favor of something else. Government regulation? Schools and libraries should set policies. Schools and libraries restricting access? It should be up to parents. Parents take responsibility? How dare they!
In this case, I would be extremely reluctant to join a workplace that monitored my computer usage. But unlike the hypocritical, dishonest bigots who edit Slashdot, I recognize the real issues here and I'm curious to hear what people think is an equitable way to deal with them.
Unfortunately, the reality is that workers in the judicial offices are not capable of policing themselves. ("A letter Lee sent on March 5 contains a list of all the movies accessed by a particular user between 12:12 p.m. and 1:35 p.m., including /bigtits/bix/mer021/3.mpg and /personal4/fuckmovie/asian/07.mpg. ")
It seems to me the issues are:
it's also all the employees of the Judicial branch. That includes court reporters, deputies, secretaries, administrators, receptionists, law clerks (my wife is actually a clerk for Judge Rosenbaum who is quoted in the editorial, and I got an email from her about 2 minutes before I saw the slashdot piece...wonder if someone reviewed the email before it went out???) all the way up to Chief Judge William Rehnquist. This is a pretty invasive policy.
This guy should look at the last ten years of computing history. Judges all over America have been giving their blessing to increased monitoring by government and private companies. They made the bed, now they should lie in it. They have been warned for years of loss of privacy brought to everyone by snooping and wiretaping. They didn't listen. They even ruled that a company can monitor any and all communication held by an employee. Did they really expect it wouldn't apply to themselves? They had it coming.
Boston Public Library Departments Reference Desks, our Regional and
/ stories
Massachusetts Library of Last Recourse, so called, have forwarded
to City Hall some reference requests for public records
managed by our public library.
It's an attempt to be a kind of deterrent for public library users and
contrary to the usual expected discretion for BPL Departmental Reference Desk services.
oo__ dWs
Guide to Problematical Boston Public Library Use
http://GuideToProblematicalLibraryUse.WebLogs.com
http://saklad.org
I work at a large inventment bank, where many employees have access to information that other employees do not. And, I suppose that whoever has the job of snooping on people's email, etc. would have access to all of this proprietary or client information. But that's not stopping them from having the policy.
Is the outcome of this struggle amongst judges really going to have any effect on the rest of us in the private sector?
That may not be accurate.
http://www.usc.edu/isd/policies/general/
(see sections 1.4 and 3.3)
"No prints can come from fingers / If machines become our hands." -- Jack Johnson
Judge wakes up in the morning and looks in the mirror.
Even though I am logged on, Bug Reporting does not recognize that I am. It asks me to log on again. When I try to do so, it fails to recognize my User ID / Password.
"SourceForge Site Login
Invalid Password or User Name
Internet Explorer users need to upgrade to IE 5.01 or higher, preferably with 128-bit SSL or use Netscape 4.7 or higher
Cookies must be enabled past this point."
I am currently on a machine running IE.5.5 with cookies enabled (company policy).
Morris
I can't support monitoring of the on-line activities of members of the judiciary, not because I have problems with monitoring in general (which I do, but that's another issue) but because it represents our first tentitive steps onto a slippery slope which has the potential of being the root cause of many great miscarages of justice.
Monitoring opens the door for filtering, which by definition operates with the sole purpose of preventing access to certain information. It is an exceedingly dangerour proposition, to suggest that Judges should be prevented from recieving certain information, as a matter of law, however this bears a little explaining. I'm not prtoposing that preventing judges from viewing pornography while they contemplate a legal decision is nessecerily a bad thing, but merely having the capability to filter what a judge sees opens the door to the potential risk of the abuse of the technology. Granted, monitoring is not filtering, but again, it's a slippery slope. Slippery slope arguments are difficult to make because you come off as though you're tilting at windmills, however, I think any technically knowlegable person can see the risks here.
This decision has been a long time in coming. Earlier this year Judge wrote an article in the Green Bag Law Journal called In Defense of the Hard Drive in response to proposals then to monitor the office PCs of members of the judiciary. It seems that proposal has been expanded to an unbelievable degree at this point.
On the bright side, there is a new grounds for appeal for every case brought before any court where this proposed system is implemented. Essentially, the argument could be made that undue influence was excerted over the court by those who monitor the proposed monitoring system; that judges will be hesitant to seek out information theough communications systems made available to him for that specific purpose in his/her chambers.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
This is an interesting question: why would *anyone* be entitled to privacy when you're using equipment that someone else has paid for?
... disturbing. Employees wouldn't stand for that. Yet they -- we -- stand for web monitoring?)
- for can *see* you yabbering when she passes your cubicle on her way to yet another important meeting.
The question is interesting for a couple reasons. First, it assumes that money -- cash, whatever -- negates privacy considerations. I'm entitled to privacy only with stuff -- phones, faxes, computers -- that I *pay* for. If I haven't paid for it, then anything goes.
Second -- and this is derived from the first point -- is the resulting "anything goes" mentality. This seems to be the real point of the WSJ article. Even though I'm getting paid for working -- and certainly expect to be given the money I'm entitled to -- why must I give my fundamental right of privacy up?
(The logic here, then, if I'm *not* getting paid -- on my lunch hour -- then does that give me the right to surf? In some places, yes. In most places, no. Because -- and some junior manager will be quick to explain this -- the fact that you surf means not only wasted productivity [which is, of course, dubious] but also liability.)
Which brings me to my third point -- and one that I have yet to receive an explanation for: the digital paradox. Why does a company fear the internet more than it does idle chatter in the bathroom? Or idle phone conversation? Why aren't my telephone calls monitored -- yet every site I visit is.
Why aren't there video cameras in the bathroom? (Because, well, that would be
I'd really like an explanation as to why the web -- more so than the phone, more so than the break-room during "work" time -- is so feared by management.
The reason, of course, is power. Skippy the mid-level manager can *see* you yabbering away in the break room.
Britney the just-out-of-Keller-with-an-MBA-I-worked-real-hard
Ah well. It's all power. Britney needs to commandeer what little power she is and make sure the power remains inviolable. I think that's what managers fear most -- loss of power. There is this illusion among the worst managers that somehow power -- their own, tenuous power -- will increase productivity. Because that means money -- the real reason the web is monitored.
It's crazy -- the surveillance. Everybody's watching, watching to make sure you don't do something to decrease productivity. Fucking absurd.
It'd be a great piece if he talked to the larger issue of any employee's right to privacy. It's kind of ironic that BOFH policies hit the news with judges, but what about the rest of us?
This is a very important issue, not just for the judiciary and rendering of justice, such as it is, in America, but in the long run for all of our individual rights in the workplace as well.
The Libertarian notion that constitutional protections stop at the private property line, and that it is therefor ok, even reasonable, for employers to invade and snoop the personal correspondence of their employees merely because such correspondence passes through their privately owned equipment or networks is responsible for more loss of individual privacy than all of the government's orwellian snooping combined, if for no other reason than that the focus of the privacy invasion is targeted so specifically by an entity against a relatively small group of people (their employees).
How then, are we to combat this remarkably Orwellian situation? First and foremost, by getting our government, in particular the judiciary, to understand what is going on and just what the stakes are. In so doing they will be sensitized to these issues, and rulings favoring individual employee rights over an employers property priveleges may perhaps become more common (after all, it is a felony for an employer to open an employee's private correspondence which has been sent by US Mail, even though the desk it is sitting on is privately owned by them, not the employee. Why should email, or web browsing, be any different?)
On the other hand, if judges are routinely subjected to this kind of invasive monitoring, and it becomes truly a widespread, acceptable practice within all branches of the government, then any argument for the protection of individual citizens' privacy will be correspondingly diluted. Our courts and judges may not grant a private citizen priveleges they themselves enjoy, but they certainly won't grant a private citizen priveleges, or rights, they themselves not only do not enjoy, and perhaps even have come to take the lake thereof for granted.
It is ironic that the judiciary is only now beginning to experience the kind of Orwellian monitoring and control all too many people have come to expect in their workplace, but perhaps this is exactly the catalyst that is needed to put an end to this nonsense in both the private and public spheres, once and for all.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
It's worse than that -- if the judges are subject to administrative sanction for such as this, an opportunity exists to taint the judicial process by exerting influence on the administrators.
The White House went in the other direction. Around 1995, the White House phone switch was modified so that long distance billing information wasn't trackable back to the original phone. Custom software mods were made (expensively) so that the info wasn't logged.
Has anyone else at any company of any size (>100 employees) seen anything along these lines? Simply asking employees to cut down Internet use and the employees did? Or any studies about this?
It sounds kinda odd to me. My reason for asking: I had never had any hesitations installing censorware for my employer to cut down on wasting bandwidth. But if asking actually works for >100 people, (ideally several documented cases) then I'll rethink my stance..
As other people have noted here, this is hardly the first step toward online monitoring of employees. People like me who work in the national labs have to deal with this sort of thing constantly, even if we don't have access to any classified data and even if we don't have a security clearance (i.e., even when it's not worth while to monitor us). This is what it says when I log in at work. When I first saw it, I thought it was someone's bad idea of a joke.
You make it sound easy. Or even possible.
When was the last time the American people agreed on anything enough to change a facet of our national government? When was the last time we replaced Form X of government with Form Y, because Form X wasn't working? When was the last time the people actually had that much power to start with? 1776?
Come on, the old adage is true: if voting could change anything, they'd make it illegal.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
But honest and competant sysadmins will also tell you that usage monitoring never needs to pry into the content of the excessive usage. Merely reporting the amount to the user usually suffices. If not, reporting it to the user's boss by definition suffices.
Unix sysadmins have evolved certain privacy ethics over the decades. Never pry into user files, email or other traffic even though it is trivially easy to do. There is no justifiable need. Record and store email headers (addressees & subject) in the event of a complaint of email non-delivery. Remind users of excessive resource usage, preferably by automated email. At the limit, publicly post a list of the top10 resource hogs. But never any mention of content.
Perhaps NT admins need a lesson?
Am I mistaken or is it Judges that have been taking away our workplace privacy rights in the first place--or more accuratly, upholding the companies rights to take away our privacy?
If the courts were against it, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't currently have any email monitoring in the workplace.
Dear Sir:
Employees are monitored all day, every working day in this country. They don't have access to the august pages of the WSJ to make their case. Since when should I believe you are a champion of the Little Guy? You represent the same class of people who appointed George Bush president, who support restitution for unauthorized computing in Georgia, Internet filtering for unauthorized reading in Michigan, arresting foreign nationals in California for unauthorized coding. When the tide turns against you, we should be concerned? My civil liberties are stripped from me daily with judicial complicity. What can you possibly expect in return?
Lawyers. I'm sick of them. The whole point of workplace surveillance of internet usage in 95% of all cases is not to measure productivity or to invade privacy or .
The primary reason is what? yes, that's right kids, to avoid corporate legal liability so some fscking lawyer won't sue for damages because everyone is reading pr0n in their cubes and some Mormon will see it.
Now the judges are upset because their workplace is being monitored? Hello, you stupid twits? It's your judicial activism from the bench that got the country here.
I have a great idea. Let's have two sets of rules. One for the working men and women of the country and one for the "judicial" elite who need "special" internet browsing priviliges in order to do their jobs.
Ever see the film of all those congressman watching pr0n flicks as testimony a few years ago? I felt harrassed just watching that!!! I need a lawyer.
Someone doesn't live in or near Massachusetts.
Your rights end on conviction. Harm others and go to jail. Prove yourself untrustworthy and find that others track your activities. It was so much easier when you could just hang em high.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Given my druthers, I'd prefer a system where everyone got to keep their privacy, but with companies increasingly taking the position, "they're our computers so we can monitor and filter if we want," and ISPs increasingly saying, "they're our networks so we can monitor and filter if we want," does anybody really still believe that's an option? At least one other poster has pointed out that this sort of monitoring is already de rigueur for many employees. Are our saviors on the bench prepared to join the crusade against this practice once their own privacy is assured? Somehow, I doubt it.
I think the worst of all possible worlds would be the one where the high and mighty are allowed to have privacy, but the rest of us are not. If every detail of my life is potentially open to scrutiny by the whole world, then I want, at the very least, to be able to discourage people from making unfair use of that information through the threat of exposing their secrets. If we rally behind these judges, perhaps we might strike a blow for privacy; then again, perhaps we might open the door to that lopsided scenario where judges and congresspeople and billionaries can protect their privacy, but the rest of us can just lump it.
No thanks. I propose instead that we support monitoring for judges and elected officials until such time as they get off their duffs and take steps to assure privacy protection for all of us.
-rpl
It's not my right to use someone else's resources to surf the net at work, granted. But if I am allowed the privilege of doing so, it _is_ my right to have my privacy untrammelled while I'm at it. If a guest at your home asks to use the telephone, you are not obligated to let them. But if you _do_ give them permission, a basic respect for human dignity demands that you not eavesdrop on their conversation by using another phone without their knowledge. And I haven't met the person yet with enough ill-advised chutzpah to inform his guests that all calls made from his phones will be monitored by him without specific permission (which is exactly the stance many companies take in their anti-privacy policies that explicitly warn employees that everything they do is being watched.)
Personal use of company equipment is a privilege. To have my privacy respected while I exercise that privilege is my right.
IHBT (I think)
--
Pay no attention to the errors in my post. I am the great and powerful Oz.
All other fedral employees already get to see this (DoDs warning) every time they log on and on every web page:
"THIS IS A DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (DoD) COMPUTER SYSTEM. This computer system, including all related equipment, networks and network devices (specifically including internet access), are provided only for authorized U.S. Government use. DoD computer systems may be monitored for all lawful purposes, including to ensure that their use is authorized, for management of the system, to facilitate protection against unauthorized access, and to verify security procedures, survivability and operational security. Monitoring includes active attacks by authorized DoD entities to test or verify the security of this system. During monitoring, information may be examined, recorded, copied and used for authorized purposes. All information, including personal information, placed on or sent over this system may be monitored. Use of this DoD computer system, authorized or unauthorized, constitutes consent to monitoring of this system. Unauthorized use may subject you to criminal prosecution. EVIDENCE OF UNAUTHORIZED USE COLLECTED DURING THIS MONITORING MAY BE USED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, CRIMINAL OR ADVERSE ACTION. USE OF THIS SYSTEM CONSTITUTES CONSENT TO MONITORING FOR THESE PURPOSES."
Please, please help your friend if you have not already. Set him up with a real OS and configure it well. If you do things right, you can hook him up to the normal network and preserve his privacy. If you explain these things to him and show him a little about how it works, you may do the rest of us a big favor. It would be nice for him to know just how bad things are already. Good luck!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Just check out this article, about a former magistrate in South Australia who took delight in abusing his trust with children.
Liddy refuses to face tearful victims
A bit of a read, but it will change your mind.
Area51 - We are watching...
Well... I certainly hope you feel that way when your placed under "the big surviellance" after getting a speeding ticket. After all, you committed a crime!...the cop said so!
Funny how everyone that replied to this post totally ignored the argument it made. He already made an argument against the replies in his post, but nobody seems to have read past the first paragraph. If you're gonna post some moronic reply, at least read the damn post first. Maybe then you can actually say something regarding the actual point of the post instead of wasting everyone's time with this drivel.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I've read Jeffrey Rosen's analysis in TNR and towards the last it struck me that there are two types of users being monitered here. The judges themselves and everybody else. One can argue that for the sake of the independace of the Cort that the Judges need complete autonimaty in their actions and thus be exempt from any internet monitering. One cannot say the same applies to other employees of the judicary. As I understand the LAW (IANAL) the owner of a computer system that provides resources to employees can legally monitor any use that employee make of said computer system. Try a FOI request of any public official and the one for Federal Judges get routed diffenterly. You are required to justify the reason you need this public information and the Judge themself's are asked if they are willing to let this information be released about them to you. Congress almost allways exempts themselves from living under the LAWS that they impose on everybody else. It should be no supprise that Federal Judges also live a priviled life with privacy rights not granted to the common citizen.
zenray
zenray
Seriously, any network use requiring privacy should be done on one's own connection. It's too bad, but even eloquently written letters decrying this fact won't change it.
sulli
RTFJ.
Lets see. Workplace monitoring of employees is ok.
Workplace monitoring of judges is not ok.
Judges are public employees.
Seems to me that the public should be allowed to see what judges are doing while working for us...
"We don't need any double standards. One standard will do just fine" G.Carlin
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
TO: karen_siegel@aol.uscourts.gov
Dear Ms. Siegel and members of the Judicial Conference:
Please forward my comments on this matter to all members of the Judicial Conference.
I am writing to express my concern about the current proposals before the conference dealing with the monitoring of judicial employee communications.
Openness and privacy play vital roles in a great deal of court business. For instance, if the testimony used to convict an individual were to be kept secret it would undermine both the appearance of justice and the actual fact of justice (RARE special exceptions involving issues such as national security notwithstanding). If a judge were to hold lengthy, substantive conversations with a plaintiff's attorney without involving or permitting any counter by the defense, it would be unfair and unjust.
On the other side, if a defendant's privileged discussions with their lawyer, or between two attorneys on a defense team were to be published in the newspaper, it would undermine the court process. If the comments made by jurors during jury deliberations were available to the public, many a decision would be questioned or even thrown out.
I hope no more arguments are needed to substantiate my point that the decisions of what part of the legal process should be public and what should be private are vital ones which lie at the heart of the just functioning of our entire legal system. Over thousands of years we have developed a code for addressing these issues, and it has NOT included pervasive monitoring of judges and judicial staff, which might, or might not, become part of the public record. Even if it did not, the behavior of that staff, in their selection of what kinds of information to seek out would certainly be influenced. I think that to introduce such monitoring is unwise, but I am CERTAIN that to introduce it suddenly, without EXTENSIVE deliberation and consideration of its effects on the entire judicial system would be dangerous.
In addition to this main point, I would like to mention two other reasons why I believe that this proposed policy is misguided. One is that there is little evidence to indicate that monitoring is needed. Judge Kozinski's article in the Wall Street Journal (with which I am sure you are familiar) expresses this point quite effectively. And lastly, I feel that this is a terrible precedent to set for all workplaces. If the employees of our judicial system cannot be trusted to perform their jobs without pervasive, "Big Brother" style monitoring, then WHO CAN? And if they cannot be trusted without such monitoring, then how can they be trusted with the much more delicate and vital job of rendering justice?
I urge you to consider these issues in your decision. I would be willing to testify or to discuss such issues at further length if you feel it would be helpful, please contact me if you feel this would be desirable.
Sincerely,
Michael B Chermside
xxxx xxxxx xxxxx Ave
Chicago IL 60660
Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx
No joke here; I don't understand.
I read slashdot all the time, and there is always an article about how some judge has ruled in favor of a wealthy entity's right to take away the privacy of an individual, followed by posts from libertarians saying that its okay that individuals don't have privacy rights in "the real world" as long as they do in theory.
That's fine. That's good. That's slashdot. I love it.
But now we have a situation where the Judges' rights to privacy are in jeopardy. And it seems most people are rallying to their defense. Send letters! Send email! Fight for their right to privacy!
I don't get it. This is almost Shakespearean irony - judges being forced to endure the consequences of an environment that they themselves helped to create. Perhaps the best way for them to see the results of their rulings on individual privacy is for them to experience what it is like to be deprived of that privacy. Why would we interfere with poetic justice?
DJS
God is real unless declared integer
"I propose instead that we support monitoring for judges and elected officials until such time as they get off their duffs and take steps to assure privacy protection for all of us."
Judges and politicians aren't closely knit groups that all march in lockstep to the same tune. You're kind of assuming a kind of institutional group politics as opposed to the individualistic disorganized political situation that actually exists. All hunderds of thousands of elected and officials and judges don't go to a meeting and say "well, companies are monitorring the private workforce, and now we're getting monitorred, so let's cut a deal to get rid of monitorring."
There's also a sort of a hopeless, if we're all going to hell, let's bring as many people as we can along...
The cameras are coming. They're getting smaller and nothing will stop them. The only question is: who watches whom?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
One point from Kozinski's article that hasn't been appreciate here so far is that federal judges do not have bosses. They do not have people who can tell them how they do their work or what hours they work or anything else similar. A higher court can tell a lower court that it was wrong and reverse it. The people of the United States can even amend the constitution, or Congress can amend a law.
A federal judge is appointed for life. Sure, Congress can remove him for bad behavior, but that has been applied as doing illegal things not how the judge ruminates about the case, or with whom. The system is designed to protect the ability of these individuals to make independent judgments. Courts of appeal provide the accountability, not putting the individuals under a microscope.
A judge cannot operate in a vacuum. He needs clerks, secretaries, and the like to do his job. Monitoring them can be like monitoring him. The judicial conference's monitoring plan is a genuine intrusion into the independence of federal judges that should be beaten back.
This is not only about the kind of privacy issue that comes up with all other workers. If that was the case, a prominent judge like Kozinski would probably not be publishing letters in the Wall Street Journal. (He's a likely candidate to be on Bush's short list for possible Supreme Court nominations.)
Didn't you know? This was all explained very clearly to me in school (although with the use of epithets). When you get a job, you're selling yourself. Not just are you selling your skills or talents, or are you being compensated for doing something useful. You are selling your soul to the company.
Don't worry, though, you'll get your soul back at the end of the day, but until then you had better work for the company you sold yourself to. It's almost a kind of self-imposed slavery -- don't expect it to make sense, just do as you're told and be a good cog.
It might seem a bit absurd at first, but it all makes sense when you add it up. We all want a new car, caviar, four-star daydream, and a football team, but only your money can give that to you. The machine gives money, but only in exchange for souls. Your choice.
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
Well, you can't deny the web is a great time-waster if that's what you want to do. It used to be they went after the use of games, either deleting them or admonishing someone playing Solitaire on company time, but that's a lot harder to track than web activity which fills up logfiles with all sorts of nice indisputable info. "So Ray, those requests from your IP, that wasn't you?" Yeah, sure.
I forsee a time when people will discover they can run standalone programs... that DON'T use the Internet... and possibly operate off of shiny digital disks... you read it here first!
The revolution will NOT be televised.
One thing to keep in mind is that some people consider punishment for the crime committed as an important part of the "prison experience".
You dismiss the "they broke the social contract" argument in your post, but it *does* have direct bearing here.
If someone spends time in jail being denied the rights which those of us on the outside allegedly enjoy and which we like to think separate us from "lesser democracies"-- and privacy is chief among these, then he or she may spend that time considering the importance of these rights, and how to keep from losing those rights again in the event he or she gets them back.
I think the relationship between the state and the prisoner *has* to be fundamentally different from the relationship between the state and the "upstanding citizen" for as long as the prisoner is in jail paying his or her debt to society. Now whether it is fair to change the rules for this person after their release is another matter, because committing a crime should not necessarily disqualify a person from good citizen status for life-- especially when it comes to the "consensual crimes" which are tying up so much of our jail space and other resources.
First they took away the privacy of collage athletes. But I wasn't a collage athlete so I did nothing.
Next they took away the privacy of railroad workers. But I wasn't a railroad worker so I did nothing.
Then they took away the privacy of government workers. But I wasn't a government worker so I did nothing.
They took away the privacy of the police. But I wasn't a policeman so I did nothing.
Now they are taking away the privacy of the FEDERAL JUDGES! Help! Help ho! Is there anyone out there?
While your comment is funny . .
There is also a difference in anonymous and privacy. One of the differences is that one is protected by the consitution, while the other isn't. Also, anonymous is a two edge sword, its a shame that privacy gets anonymous attached to it so fequently.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
For posterity's sake, Kozinski's letter also has a home here.
Heh, I find it quite disheartening that judges think they should be some special bastion of workplace privacy rights. If anything, the work of judges should be far more open to external scruitany than mine.
Federal case law has been eroding the average workers right to privacy, and even extending the intrusivness of corporate monitoring into our personal lives, but this judge wants to be treated differently than the rest of us -- screw that.
While in theory I agree with his position, I don't support him until these rights are extended to all employees not just the judical branch.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) believes that if we can't trust judicial employees to use computers appropriately, then we shouldn't trust them to administer our courts. -- The EFF
While I'm not advocating that Judges be subject to surveillance, I have to say that I do *not* trust judicial employees in the slightest. The US legal system is scary. It has very little to do with actual justice or fairness. And these are *government* employees we're talking about. The same government that runs the IRS, FBI, CIA, etc., and in the case of state governments the DMV, the state police, and so on. Does the thought of these organizations instill you with confidence in the abilities of our government workers?
I would agree that employees in the judicial branch of government (especially judges) are probably of higher caliber than, say, your average DMV worker, that doesn't change the fact that they are government employees and are therefore highly susceptible to bouts of extreme incompetence.
I think the EFF's rhetoric here only hurts their cause.
So the same judges who've been quite forward about giving away *my* privacy, via a long and depressing string of judgements that it is perfectly ok for employers to snoop on their employees (to "closely monitor" in order to sniff out "inappropriate content", yada yada) are now whining that their employer (me) doesn't have that right wrt them.
Nice try. No cookie...
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
How about we put a stop to a lot of these privacy concerns about Big Brother... why not shove through an old-fashioned constitutional amendment which says something like:
"No institution, whether governmental, corporate or charitable, may take actions which would unduly intrude upon the privacy of an individual citizen against their express consent, save the minimum effort required to maintain law and order at a reasonable level."
That would allow for things like criminal wiretaps, IRS tax databases. It ought to keep things like email monitoring out. now the actual language might need to be changed into something that would hold up, but what about the idea?? Should privacy be a constitutional right equal to free speech and freedom of religion?
...There are some very creative journalists who can take small bits of information and blow them out of proportion...
Yeah, like Jon Katz.
Dear Judge Kozinski,
I've just read your piece in the Wall Street Journal on the shocking behaviour of Mr. Mecham, and I would like to know if there's anything that I, as a private citizen, can do to bring an end to this man's employment by the taxpayers.
Mr. Mecham is a sordid little voyeur in the mold of J. Edgar Hoover, and he must be stopped. Indeed, if this man is allowed to escape prosecution, it will be a very sad commentary on the state of our republic.
I urge you, personally, to file both criminal and civil complaints against Mr. Mecham, and I hope you nail that little bastard to the wall.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If congresscritters have no privacy, why would they care if anyone else did?
The next time some anti-p0rn legislation comes up in committee, I want every secret wanker in the whole damned legislature knowing what they have to lose.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The court is dangerously close on way too many constitutional issues. I'd feel a whole lot better if there were at least one outspoken privacy advocate on the court.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If judges are going to sit around looking at porn all day instead of working then I, as a taxpayer and citizen, demand action be taken. Judges are NOT above the law, if anything they are held to a higher scrutiny than anyone else. Not only should detailed logs of their activity be kept, they should be posted to a public web site for any citizen to see. Internet monitoring is a good thing and I strongly support it to prevent abuse of public and corporate resources. You don't have any privacy in a public place and shouldn't expect any on the Internet.
I think it is a step in the wrong direction to talk so strongly about disallowing the monitoring of anyone. This takes away the rights of people who would have reason and want to monitor them.
Instead, control who gets to see the information. Let it be released to all of the public in raw forms, as we are the employers of these judges. This increases their accountability, which is always good.
We should be asking not to stop the monitoring, but to have easy access to the raw data from the monitoring.
By requesting the cessation of monitoring, you are hurting us all.
Besides, if we know what the judge is thinking, why have a jury?
Because it's a constitutional guarantee (for federal laws, anyway).
I mean really folks, what ever happened to ignorance being bliss? Everybody has something they'd like to keep hidden. I have things I want to keep hidden (No, you don't get to know). When we find out that a figure in our government is doing the same thing we're doing, it becomes a scandal. I guess that was a roundabout way of saying this, but I suppose my point is that if we didn't know what our government's employees were doing, for the most, part, it doesn't hurt anybody.
Judges complain about their privacy but give the rest of us secret opinions. They should be concerned with the privacy of their own opinions most of which are conveniently labeled "Pursuant to Rule 47, this disposition is not citable as a precedent". How can we know, and who can tell us, why their dispositions, if proper, are not citable? Or do we take the Wall Street Journal, Slashdot, Rosen and other court kiss-asser's words?.
got into trouble for watching people. Is there any particular reason why his conviction and 10 year sentence hasnt been mentioned either on this site, or kuro5hin?
The post says "only today" but that only holds for the (directness of the) link. If you now (Wednesday or later) follow that link you can click "feature archive" and get the article; or you could try this link which should bring you directly to the article (modulo the e-mail thingy, probably; the link gets me there directly because I have their cookie now and I am too lazy to find out how to remove individual cookies in Netscape).
Don't ya think?
If you need text styles to communicate then you don't have a message.
Mecham has capitulated, and it looks like he's going to lose his job for things he said about about Judges Kozinski and Schroeder.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."