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.

Comments

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[Zero__Kelvin]

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 ...

Everyday.....

[linuxrunner]

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

Re:Wrong branch.

[Aexia]

A couple years ago when I worked on the hill, one Senator's office(Inhofe?) got busted for downloading porn. How'd HIR find out about it? Because they crashed the servers with the amount they were bringing in.

It was all the more humorous given how socially conservative their boss was.

Because I'm a person

[PiEquals3]

The right to privacy falls under the umbrella of humane working conditions, like the rights to a decent wage and a limited workday. To invade someone's privacy without a compelling, situation-specific motive is to insult their dignity as a free human being. Many "rights" for which people clamor amount merely to spoiled selfishness (a fellow I know once told me of our "right" to a department coffee maker), but to invade someone's privacy is a worse insult and a deeper exploitation than is sexual harassment.

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)