Northwest Privacy Lawsuit Dismissed

dritan writes "News.com is reporting that a judge has tossed out a privacy lawsuit against Northwest airlines. The plaintiffs claimed that their privacy was violated when Northwest gave their information to the government. From the judge: 'Although Northwest had a privacy policy for information included on the Web site, plaintiffs do not contend that they actually read the privacy policy prior to providing Northwest with their personal information. Thus, plaintiffs' expectation of privacy was low.' Do you always read the privacy policy?" If you haven't read a particular EULA, does that mean it doesn't apply either? Here is the Judge's order (PDF).

Comments

Re:What should we expect?

[John Seminal]

You miss two points.

1) There is some national catastrophe. There is uncertainty if other imminent threats exsist. Comparing 3,000 people dying in an attack, and searching for drungs are so different in scope I am suprised that anyone would try and say they are the same thing. If someone asked me would I surrender my liberty to catch a drug dealer I would say no. If someone asked me if I would temporarily surrender some limited liberty to stop a dirty nuke from exploding I would say "hell yeah". Not that I would ever give my liberty away, but if it means a few weeks of less rights for years of greater security I am all for it.

2) That when the government does a search without a warrent, then there can be no arrest made based on what is seized by that search. So if the police search a house where they think there are drugs, but do not get a warrent, even if they find drugs that person can not be charged based on that evidence.

I think some people must be really pariniod that government is out to get everyone, when government is trying to protect USA citizens. How stupid would it be to say, because of our principles we will keep governments head in the sand, not alowing it to see upcomming threats. Instead we would rather let dirty nukes go off and planes fly into buildings than giving our government the tools to fight back and keep us free.