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The Dead Past: the Biggest Threat To Privacy Is Us
An anonymous reader writes "Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals candidly discusses the future of privacy law in an essay published today in the Stanford Law Review Online. Referencing an Isaac Asimov short story, Kozinski acknowledges a serious threat to our privacy — but not from corporations, courts, or Congress: 'Judges, legislators and law enforcement officials live in the real world. The opinions they write, the legislation they pass, the intrusions they dare engage in—all of these reflect an explicit or implicit judgment about the degree of privacy we can reasonably expect by living in our society. In a world where employers monitor the computer communications of their employees, law enforcement officers find it easy to demand that internet service providers give up information on the web-browsing habits of their subscribers.'" (Excerpt continues below.)
"In a world where people post up-to-the-minute location information through Facebook Places or Foursquare, the police may feel justified in attaching a GPS to your car. In a world where people tweet about their sexual experiences and eager thousands read about them the morning after, it may well be reasonable for law enforcement, in pursuit of terrorists and criminals, to spy with high-powered binoculars through people's bedroom windows or put concealed cameras in public restrooms. In a world where you can listen to people shouting lurid descriptions of their gall-bladder operations into their cell phones, it may well be reasonable to ask telephone companies or even doctors for access to their customer records. If we the people don't consider our own privacy terribly valuable, we cannot count on government — with its many legitimate worries about law-breaking and security — to guard it for us.'"
Because I choose to disclose something about myself -one way-, I necessarily want to allow -every- method of accessing that information and every possible use of it? Hogwash.
A judge should know better than to blame the victim.
tl;dr
While I do agree with some of the reasoning behind this, I don't think you can make that argument in totality. But I did love the reference to Issac Asimov...
...between haxing accounts and forcing ISPs to give up info, and me sharing a photo of myself at a party. If I share a photo of myself at a party, that goes out to friends, and friends-of-friends, and in general I trust that people aren't going to just post that everywhere. This isn't always the case, but when it does happen it's commonly accepted as a dick move.
No, the biggest threat to privacy isn't us you fuckwit, its the government and the newspapers, its a vicious circle.
This is just another "It's different because of the internet." bullshit justifications.
People have always let those they are close to to know where they are.
People have always talked about sex.
People have always talked about their health issues.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
True. But the victim can mitigate abuse by not being so naive. It's a community effort by those that know to inform those that don't.
Life is not for the lazy.
So, what is the moral? The best way to keep your privacy is to think like a criminal, funny, ain't?
He's completely correct. People don't give a fig about their privacy. They splatter intimate details of their private lives all over the internet, where not only everyone else can see, but every future person can look up with ease because it's a permanent record. I can only laugh at the people who flip out because they are fired/expelled/whatever because someone found something inappropriate in a facebook or twitter post. I mean, really... what did they expect?
If you have something you want to be private then maybe... just maybe.... you shouldn't publish it onto a world-wide computer network that is viewable by millions of people!
And this is ignoring the studies that found people would willingly give up their passwords and whatnot for a chocolate bar, or used passwords like 12345 (queue luggage jokes...).
Exactly. Most people aren't concerned with their on-line privacy, because they don't understand the issue. They see that the people they know can see the pictures of their cute kids. They don't see /b/ or reddit or 9gag or someone else taking that picture, morphing it into a meme, and unleashing it on the world (side note, in my opinion, this is the slightest invasion of privacy available to you today; at worst, corporations use your information to use 'targeted ads' on you).
There needs to be an organization devoted to privacy issues (I'm sure there is), and education about appropriate vs inappropriate behavior apparently needs to start in grade school, because in my honest opinion, it is plain that parents aren't supplying any lessons there.
No! It's NOT fucking reasonable for law enforcement, or anyone else to do those things. People can and should be able to CHOOSE to make the information public.
But, if they choose to not make it public IT IS IN NO WAY REASONABLE "for law enforcement, in pursuit of terrorists and criminals, to spy with high-powered binoculars through people's bedroom windows or put concealed cameras in public restrooms."
The captcha says: delirium
How does it know?
My husband wouldn't hit me if I weren't so clumsy
I think the proper analogy would be, "My neighbor would stop looking in my front window if I'd stop standing naked in front of it."
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Who else involuntarily started hearing "The Voice" (movie trailer narrator) in their mind when reading that sentence? LOL
"In a world... (dramatic view) Where employers monitor the computer communications of their employees... (cut to serious-looking IT people staring sternly at computer screens) Law enforcement officers find it easy to demand that internet service providers give up information on the web-browsing habits of their subscribers..."
Obviously, you have tha right to share whatever personal information you want with the rest of the world. Why that would mean you have no right to privacy is beyond me. By that logic they could confiscate your wealth after donating to a charity, because you were giving away money so you obviously don't need it. You have the right to share your personal information and the right to keep it private.
Judge Kozinski has missed the biggest part of this equation: the concept that WE get to choose when we want to be private.
Certainly there are circumstances in which one does not get to choose, like walking around in public. But for the most part, the value of privacy is intimately attached to the fact that WE choose when we want to exercise it, and when not.
Targetted ads bother me far less than malicious editing and hate-filled distribution of pictures of non-public figures intended to mock and offend.
And both should be legal.
More like, "My neighbor would stop looking in my window if a person I don't know two thousand miles away would stop standing naked in front of her window."
Hans
We must get used to using all the tools available to us as a matter of course in everyday life so as to make big brother expend vast resources chasing shadows!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
So, all we can do is reduce stupidity/ignorance with better education!
Dear Penthouse, I've read the letters that people sent into you for years but I never thought that I'd be sending one in. It all started ...
That judge is an idiot who is attempting to use "teh innerwebs" as justification for increased surveillance.
People have been doing everything he's talking about for YEARS. It just did not have the immediacy that it has now. But that should not make an iota of difference.
Hey Editors:
This story summary ends with "Excerpt continues below" but there is no link to click on to read it. I clicked on the "Read the 25 comments" link, but that doesn't make sense unless you are a Slashdot veteran. It would make more sense for the text "Excerpt continues below" itself to be a link, or do what other sites do like Engadget's "Read more -->" link.
Just because my neighbor doesn't close his blinds and hides nothing doesn't mean I do the same.
Why should my desire for privacy be limited by the little regard that my neighbor holds for his own.
I can only laugh at the people who flip out because they are fired/expelled/whatever because someone found something inappropriate in a facebook or twitter post. I mean, really... what did they expect?
I have a big problem over people being punished over irrelevancies, private or not. Fired from your job because of something you do on the weekend that your boss doesn't "approve" of? That's BS. I have yet to see an job description/application that sets guidelines on how I use my personal time.
There is way too much hand-waving going on with respect to making unflattering or risque information "public" by failing to keep up to date on FB's latest privacy policy ruse. Ditto for the supposed "logic" of expecting people to live their entire lives as if they were on a webcam being broadcast on their employer's home page.
Unless there is clear damage to an employer's reputation, and I am talking legal libel/slander standards, I don't see any justification for judging of punishing people for "inappropriate" conduct. People shouldn't have to be paranoid about privacy. Are we all supposed to live our lives according to the standards of the most uptight HR weenie?
People should be able to trade their password for a chocolate bar, because it is illegal to steal.
I disagree. And I would expect a judge to know better.
Just because Alice does X does NOT mean that Bob also does X. And every judge should be able to understand that.
"In a world where people post up-to-the-minute location information through Facebook Places or Foursquare, the police may feel justified in attaching a GPS to your car. In a world where people tweet about their sexual experiences and eager thousands read about them the morning after, it may well be reasonable for law enforcement, in pursuit of terrorists and criminals, to spy with high-powered binoculars through people's bedroom windows or put concealed cameras in public restrooms. In a world where you can listen to people shouting lurid descriptions of their gall-bladder operations into their cell phones, it may well be reasonable to ask telephone companies or even doctors for access to their customer records. If we the people don't consider our own privacy terribly valuable, we cannot count on government — with its many legitimate worries about law-breaking and security — to guard it for us.'"
Absolutely not. Just because individuals -- or even society at large -- choose to make their public lives private does not mean, suggest or imply that *I* have chosen to do so. Similarly, even if I do create posts on Facebook Places at times, tweet about (some of) my sexual exploits, or discuss selected health issues on the telephone in public places, that does not mean that I have agreed to disclose my whereabouts at all times , agreed to allow voyeurs to peek through my bedroom windows at all, nor agreed that all of my health and telephone records should be public (and just to be clear, I was not aware there even was a Facebook Places, nor have ever signed up for Twitter, much less Tweeted about my sex life -- although, I probably have discussed selected health issues in places where I could be overheard).
To argue that, at times, we may knowingly and consciously choose to give up certain elements of our privacy means that we therefore have no value for privacy at all -- and that consequently, the government should be allowed to violate our privacy at their whim -- is absurd beyond belief. That a sitting judge would suggest such a thing is frightening beyond belief. I would expect a judge to have, well, better judgment than that.
I do, however, agree completely with his last sentence in the quote above. Both individually and collectively, we had better start acting as if privacy is still important to us before we no longer have any privacy left, and we had better make sure our elected officials get that message loud and clear.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Targetted ads bother me far less than malicious editing and hate-filled distribution of pictures of non-public figures intended to mock and offend. And both should be legal.
Well, the world's political cartoonists will certainly thank you for writing that. ;-)
And, lest you think I'm being silly, consider that here in the US, judges have ruled that computer-generated pictures that look like naked children are legally child pornography. Even when no children were involved in the creation of the images.
It's only a small step from there to considering a political cartoon image of people to be equivalent to an actual photo of those people. We do have cases of 'shopped images of real people to be considered at least misdemeanors. (Have any criminal charges been seen for such altered images?)
Of course, this is an area that is currently in legal limbo, as the legal system tries to catch up with advancing technology. There are computers involved, after all, and the presence of a computer has a history of cancelling all legal precedent. We're slowly repeating the process that led to the pre-computer "rights" in large parts of the world. One law at a time, the legal system is trying to decide whether the law still applies when a computer is involved. We can expect that various judges will continue to decide "yes" or "no" for idiosyncratic reasons, until all rights laws are sorted out yet again. In the meantime, all governments and other authority figures will act as if those rights no longer exist in the modern electronic world.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Privacy is just a variant on the same theme as physical property, copyright or trademarks - our right to give someone something of ours is NOT the same as someone else's right to give someone something of ours. If something belongs to you, then since the days of Hammurabi it truly belongs to you and you have final say on what happens to it.
Privacy is NOT, as this judge would have it, equatable to a trade secret - where, once it is known, it is no longer afforded the protection of being a secret. Well, ok, some people regard this as being the correct model but I (and most of Europe) dispute this and, frankly, I'd argue that Europe has had rather longer to debate the various models than the American judiciary.
Once all data in your life is reduced to mere secrets (rather than personal property) you run into the obvious problem that everything in your life is ultimately reducible to data. That includes physical property, since ownership is not conveyed by possession but by certification and certification is data.
I'm not saying loss of privacy necessarily means loss of any form of ownership, but since they stem from the same root principle and have the same ultimate objective (you control what you own) then damage to both ends of one chain must correspond to damage to both ends of both chains. The "slippery slope" argument is often abused, but here I think it is a very legitimate concern and should not be treated lightly.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Some years ago an ambitious prosecutor in Utah filed criminal charges against an adult entertainment store alleging obscenity in the adult videos that were rented or sold. The attorneys decided to establish community standards by demand a rental record of adult videos from all of the Salt Lake City hotels and video rental outlets. The charges were dropped when it became evident that the videos were within community standards. It worked out well for the accused in this example.
What the judge is saying is that if our social and or community standards for privacy are low then the government will have a low standard for guarding privacy. If it becomes normal and acceptable to post lurid pictures of yourself all over the net then we have little complaint if the government looks at these photos. Consider the few cases where criminals have posted online boasts about criminal activity, and in some cases displaying the stolen goods. Law enforcement comes calling and those posts are evidence against them. The judge is giving us a fair warning about the possible direction of privacy case law.
And how are we going to do that? I've come across countless people who basically say, "If you have nothing to hide, what do you have to fear?" They trust the government unconditionally as long as they claim to be protecting them from the terrorists or if they claim to be protecting "the children." They're completely ignorant (perhaps willfully) of history and its long line of horribly, evil, and corrupt governments. Can we really convince them?
The judge agrees with you. He's trying to warn you. His warning is that it's all too easy for government agents to fall into the trap of thinking that you describe when people do not actively guard their own privacy. He's not saying that this is right and proper, he's describing the world as it is, not as it should be.
-- 77IM, we need a moderation "-1, Clearly Didn't RTFA"
Student: Is it true that the foundation of the universe is paradox?
Master: Well, yes and no.
I know I shouldn't be surprised by all the people posting without actually having read the article, but c'mon...
The judge is not justifying or apologizing for what the government is doing. He's pointing out that what is happening is an inevitable consequence to the path that we, as a population, are on and that we shouldn't be the slightest bit surprised.
The vast majority of the population is happy to vomit the most lurid details of their lives onto a public forum. They are willing to give up their passwords for a chocolate bar. These are the same people who want public officials that they can identify with. That they can "have a beer" with. In other words, who are like them. So what happens? We get officials that think nothing of violating other people's privacy, cause the people want them to. Except these people can't be bothered to think far enough ahead to release that everyone is an "other person" to someone else, and ergo everyone's privacy is up for grabs.
But everyone here would rather shoot the messenger, rather than take what he wrote as the warning it is.
While not directly relevant, the intent is the same: http://xkcd.com/743/
Most people in the world are stupid. Their stupidity harms themselves in ways they cannot perceive, and it harms ME in ways I CAN perceive.
But there isn't much I can do to protect myself against their stupidity, because they outnumber me greatly, and they vote.
I'm sorry everyone, he just got away from us this time. Usually we keep the insane ramblings to his website or journal, but occsionally a little crazy gets out into the wild. Please continue on your way, and have a super day!
As the law stands right now, any time you share information with (or through) a third party, whether it's Facebook, Twitter, your browsing habits, or even your finances, the government can legally ask that third party for the information, without a warrant, and present it as evidence against you. The 4th Amendment doesn't prevent that data from being admissible in court; if you share the data with a third party, the third party can legally submit it as evidence. If you don't want a third party to be able to hand over your data in court, don't give them your data. Since people are routinely sharing their data with third party services these days (knowingly or not), it sets up a reduced expectation of privacy for everyone.
That's the law and how it works. Don't shoot the messenger.
>>>They see that the people they know can see the pictures of their cute kids.
Funny you bring that up.
I just tried to log into facebook from a wireless device (instead of my home PC), and facebook made me identify a bunch of people in various pictures. Problem: Some of the pictures are kids I've never seen, or random uploaded comic/joke images, or people I know online but not by sight, so I couldn't identify them even if I saw them.
Basically I couldn't get past this security.
Why couldn't they just send me a verification email like normal? Stupid stupid facebook.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
As soon as I read "we live in the real world" it seemed obvious that this man is deluded and maybe even dangerous.
We ALL live in the real world. What happens when I don't choose to book face? I don't use twitter. By his logic I should be exempt from all this. I could so far as to say I should be able to sue the City of Chicago for their "Righteous Shield" surveillance network (or whatever the hell it's called) because I do not make my whereabouts known. No gps, no data plan, i "like" something on FB occasionally but that's it, and no twitter.
THESE types of men, who think they know what's best for everyone, are the danger. They don't do anything at all when they're in a position of power to help or provide commentary, just sit back and act smug, and on a whim they say "Sorry, you brought this on yourself."
It's disingenuous, and I find it disturbingly common in people who have little or no oversight on their position of power.
-
is U.S. - oh wait, that's not what it says.
If what the judge says is true, and we are all just putting all of our information out for anyone to read, then law enforcement should have no more need to request information from social media companies anymore. After all, my status updates, photos, etc. are easily viewable by anyone, including law enforcement.
they don't call it the "9th Circus" for nothing.
And how are we going to do that? I've come across countless people who basically say, "If you have nothing to hide, what do you have to fear?"
Well, I just suggest that they put all their account names, numbers and passwords online. They have nothing in those accounts to hide, right? Most people have the sense to understand why this is a really bad idea. If they didn't have that much sense, they've probably already had an account drained or seen someone else post something online in their name, so they've been taught "the hard way".
Giving the government the "right" to intercept and record our electronic communications is guaranteed to result in interception of your identifying info for your bank accounts and credit cards. It's just a matter of time before some government employee sells that information to someone who wants to use it.
One of the growing risks is that with "smart phones", online banking has such a risk that few people understand. You expect that banking links would be encrypted. But with cell phones, they are often sent in the clear to the phone company's server, where they are encrypted. Thus, the bank thinks it's an encrypted link, but the phone company in fact has the ability to record the plain-text data and do with it as they like.
This is especially hard to get good information about, though, because even Android cell phones have a lot of proprietary software in them that the user has no way of inspecting. That software could be recording everything you do and keeping it in the phone company's databases.
(And no, I won't believe any denials until the source is available and we "hackers" have the ability to recompile and reinstall it ourselves. Without this, no claims of privacy can be believed. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
the problem with that argument being - not everyone 'post up-to-the-minute location information through Facebook Places or Foursquare' or 'tweet about their sexual experiences' but EVERYONE has to abide by a judges decision. It IS up to us how much of our lives we give, it IS NOT up to the government to decide how much we must give. That judge (like so many others) needs sacked for Constitution Molestation.
Sad that your comment was so highly rated. Do you really think that any Judas that turns his pot smoking customers in when he gets busted or bribed has any self-respect? The police are mostly polite, but I have yet to see very many who are respectful of anyone, period. Cops are just people diong their jobs, and on the whole, people suck. People who suck and also have power are not going to respect anyone at all.
I found it interesting that the submission's title was the same as a creepy Asimov story. Surely that was deliberate.
Free Martian Whores!