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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.
...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.
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.
The internet IS different.
For starters - here's two ways it's different from what people have traditionally expected.
First, its reach is global. Second, it's memory is infinite, and it remembers everything.
The first point is what gets a lot of people. If I talk about sex on say, a street corner with a few friends, the general expectation is that the only people who will hear it would be my friends, and the people in the immediate vicinity (and likewise my friends' friends and their local group). Either way, it generally won't spread too far (the worst is the whole town if it's small).
With the Internet, that blog post or status update, becomes global as friends notice and re-post/re-tweet/congratuate etc. You may make it private, they, public. And now the whole world knows.
The second gets people over and over again - the internet does not forget. You put something up, and others copy it and put it around. It works for software, and it works for everything else as well. Old newsgroup posts people thought were dead were resurrected. Old tales of misdeeds haunt them at the next job interview, that sort of thing.
Thing is, most people don't realize it and they think telling everyone their FourSquare location is only going to be of interest to friends when a lot more people may stumble upon it.
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
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.
"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?
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.
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/
>>>That judge is an idiot who is attempting to use "teh innerwebs" as justification for increased surveillance.
ALMOST ALL THE PEOPLE COMMENTING HERE NEED TO READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE. THE JUDGE IS SAYING HE DOES not LIKE THE WORLD WE'VE CREATED.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"