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Judge Orders Deleted Emails Turned Over
Anonymous Coward writes "In a lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission, a subpoena sent to Google orders the turnover of the complete contents of a Gmail account, including deleted e-mail messages. The Judge has granted the subpoena and orders that all e-mail messages, including deleted messages, be divulged. Google's privacy policy says deleted e-mail messages 'may remain in our offline backup systems' in perpetuity. It does not guarantee that backups are ever deleted. So much for the Delete Forever button."
I TOLD YOU SO.
I've maintained before that Google retains far too much information to make the use of Gmail anything less than a full-blown privacy nightmare. (For more information, please look here and here.)
And now, the chickens have come home to roost. From TFA: A stunning victory for the Establishment and a horror show for private citizens everywhere. Welcome to 1984.
And before you start, please don't object that the person affected is a defendant in a criminal proceeding, because that's quite beside the point. The point is that Google has this information on you, and will hand it over upon request. This vindicates the caterwauling of all the privacy advocates concerning Google and Gmail, and establishes a dangerous legal precedent. Remember, as our 'inalienable' rights are systematically stripped away by the architects of the New World Order, more and more of the things you do become 'illegal'...and subject to criminal persecution...er...prosecution. It might not be long before you are being referred to as 'defendant'...what will you think of your Gmail account then?
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
All email messages exist in perpetuity. They can be stored as backups in any server that they touch between the sender & the receiver.
If you're concerned about the contents of your emails being divulged - USE (open/gnu/etc...)PGP!
If that is still too insecure for you, meet the recipient in the middle of the park for a strolling conversation; and don't forget the white noise generator.
...it makes much more sense to run your own mail server. That's what I do. I don't trust ANYONE but myself with my mail.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
With everything that's been going on lately, it sounds like the American government really wants to take Google down in the war of public opinion. The gov't just keeps trying to make them look worse and worse. And since the American courts typically just allow the gov't to do whatever it wants, they're winning.
Hey, I happen to know YOUR company does backups! You deleted your mail from the server, but you didn't hunt down those tapes in the vault, did you? Huh?
Does NO ONE remember Ollie North and the White House PROFS system? 20 years later, and people still think incriminating data will always just go away when you desire.
INFORMATION WANTS TO BE COPIED.
The latest Slashdot meme.
Someone think of the poor people that will have to read through all the spam that goes through one mailbox!!!
... I can picture the defense getting a 80GB archive tape and being told that was all messages recieved. Yes, 99.999% of them are spam. Enjoy.
Heck
Talk about burying the opposition in paperwork.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
BadAnalogyGuy, is that you?
This guy's the limit!
Google: The gmail documents may remain present in our offline backup system. ... with a torch.
IRS: I eventually had to go down to the cellar...
Google: That's the offline backup system's machine room.
IRS:
Google: Ah, the lights had probably gone.
IRS: So had the stairs.
Google: But you found the tape, didn't you?
IRS: Yes. It was backed up on paper tape stored in the bottom of a locked drawer beneath a PC04/PC05 tape reader with a dot-matrix printed sign on the door saying 'ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS.' Ever thought of going into search technology?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Considering my first meeting today was regarding how best to redesign the mail system to make it easier to comply withsubpoenas in the future. Step one of that redesign: turn off the backups!
Just more proof that the 'e' in email doesn't stand for 'electronic', it's 'evidence'.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Encryption would be the way to go with email if all your correspondents would agree to cooperate. In my case, there are perhaps two people I correspond with regularly via email who might consider making the effort.
It's worth noting that this fight isn't over yet. The defendant has lost his motion to squash the subpoena based on a privileged communications argument. That's really not surprising... the argument is tantamount to saying "I receive letters from my lawyer in the mail, so you can't have any of my mail." It's just not gonna fly in our civil justice system which has very liberal rules of discovery.
However, based on the article Google has not yet had the opportunity to respond to the subpoena. The third party can always move to squash, and that's where things will get interesting. Will Google be able to convince the court that certain messages are deleted and thus not retrievable. Or, perhaps, that the defendant believed he was deleting the messages and thus deserves to have the messages kept under lock?
These are questions only Google, as the third party, can raise. Now that the judge has issued the subpoena, Google is in a position to actually make those motions. And, if my legal education is worth anything, my money says Google/defendant will appeal if they lose because it's such a new area of the law that an Appeals Court really ought to announce a legal precedence.
Only 120 characters... who can summarize their entire world understanding in 120 characters?!
1. Buy stamps, envelopes & paper
2. Use the Postal Service
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Encrypt away, they'll subpoena the email, you're right. Then they'll subpoena the passphrase. If you don't comply with the subpoena for the passphrase, they'll obtain a search warrant, and find where you wrote it down, admit it, its in a card in your wallet, or in some pass store software, isn't it? Then they'll use good old fashioned forensics to decrypt the shadow cache and drag a list of passwords on your server out in the open.
And finally, if that doesn't work, they'll throw you in jail for contempt of court until such time as you do remember your passphrase.
Don't underestimate the power of the government to discover secrets, they've been in the business for years.
What concerns me more is this enforced compliance with a subpoena for a crime that might have been committed, but for which they have to conduct a search to determine if evidence exists that a crime was committed. This thing stinks to high heaven of unconstitutional and illegal search and seizure. Where are the lawyers screaming habeas corpus?
Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability: without Availability the other two are assured, as is Bankruptcy.
Look folks.. Privacy simply does not exist. You'll get your search terms read, email copied, if you encrypt you have to give over the keys and if you don't then you get put into prison anyway.
Your phone will be tapped, mobile will be tracked, cars followed with "traffic enforcement cameras". Your DNA will be on file, biometrics saved and your Underground trips logged.
Everywhere you go there are CCTV cameras, face recognition. Your purchases are tracked with credit cards, store loyalty cards and RFID tags. Your bank transactions are flagged if they look interesting and the tax people peer into your account looking for money that suddenly appears.
1984 got here, oh, 22 years ago now...
next we will all be saying that it is alright that the gov't has our phone lines all tapped, just on the off chance a terrorist might call us and ask for help. why don't we all just back up all of our data online, let them read it all, and find the horrible people then.
now for me, If you live in a free society, you must tolerate risks in the name of freedom too. this sounds more reasonable. forget the injustices we "must" suffer to remain safe, and start taking a few more risks to ensure that we remain free. otherwise our government becomes no better than the old soviet government or the governmtner that orwell created in 1984 with big brother watching over us.
"{09f911029d74e35b/==\d84156c5635688c0}"
I'm going to install cameras throughout your house. I don't see how this will harm you unless you're growing weed or bringing home prostitutes.
I'm going to install a satellite phone/monitor/GPS on your car that will phone the police if you exceed the current speed limit. I don't see how this will harm you unless you're breaking the speed limit.
I'm going to install a keystroke logger on your computer that will record everything you type. I don't see how this will harm you unless you use your computer to transfer money for gangsters.
I'm going to log every packet your computer sends that leaves the USA (Oh, wait, the NSA beat me to it...). I don't see how this will harm you unless you're secretly communicating with al Qaeda.
I'm going to steam every piece of mail that arrives in your mailbox open and photocopy it before it gets to you. I don't see how this will harm you unless you were the bastard who was sending the Anthrax letters.
I'm going to put a rootkit on that CD you bought that will contact me if you try to copy it and then break your computer. I don't see how this will harm you unless you like to rip and share music illegally.
Have I made my point?
http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/2283
See if you can understand the implications?
Question one: Does someone that refuses to implicate himself in a government witchhunt prove he is guilty?
Does someone that denies he is involved in the communist party mean he is guilty?
The point is that any american that is worth his salt SHOULD deny telling the government anything for fear that failure to state his position on something will be construed as anything other than defending his constutuional rights. Check www.papersplease.org for more information.
Erik