Obama Faces Major Online Privacy Test 72
CNET has a piece on the prospects for an initiative to revamp privacy law for the digital age being put forward by an unlikely coalition that includes Microsoft, Google, privacy advocates, and conservative and libertarian organizations. "When Barack Obama was campaigning for the presidency in 2008, he promised that as president, he would 'strengthen privacy protections for the digital age.' That pledge will be put to the test as the Obama administration considers whether to support a new privacy proposal released by a coalition including Google, eBay, Microsoft, AT&T, the ACLU, and Americans for Tax Reform... The [so-called] Digital Due Process coalition already has met with attorneys from the Justice Department's computer crime unit, White House attorneys, FBI representatives, and Commerce Department officials... the law enforcement meetings were 'respectful' and 'substantive.'"
Double Speak (Score:3, Insightful)
"'strengthen privacy protections for the digital age"
In other words, watch your every online movement?
Re:Double Speak (Score:2, Insightful)
Define rules (Score:3, Insightful)
DISCLAIMER: IANAL (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm the son of one. That word "Should" is pesky. Usually law enforcement will just ask the 3rd party for the information and it's handed over without question (I know this first hand). Just because they Should ask for a warrant just means that unless it's written as Shall, it won't happen. I didn't read the article. If Obama is going to use this as the basis for the law I hope it's carefully edited; the saddest part being that one is needed at all.
Re:Double Speak (Score:4, Insightful)
Under bush the liberals/dems wallowed in paranoia.
Under obama the conservatives/repubs wallow in paranoia.
This country is hardly enough of a bother to induce real action. Its hard to get people to actually do something when what they really care about is the next episode of Lost and their acceptance of the generally unimpeded path between work and the couch.
Re:A good step forward, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
The companies who are collecting data aren't informing you that they are doing it, they aren't telling you what it will be used for, and you rarely have a chance to challenge it. It might be hidden in their EULA or Terms of Service, but those are often written in legalese and in such length that a vast majority of people just check the box and accept it. I do it myself, and I do care about what information is being collected about me. I personally know what is going on behind the scenes, but how can one expect the grandmother who logs into facebook to play farmville and interact with her family to?
The government can compel you to give up information sure, but at least you are aware of what information is being collected and why you are being compelled to furnish it. Your point about the government being able to compel others to give up your information against your will is spot on, and I feel that a lot of the ideas proposed by this coalition are actually good in protecting us from the government. Just incomplete since we also need to have tougher privacy laws in regard to corporations too.
And sadly you are correct about the difficulty in getting such legislation passed. The lack of knowledge about how much data is really being collected about people online among the general public is one of the root causes of this whole mess. If people knew about what was going on, and what they could do to prevent it, such legislation would probably be pointless. Unfortunately that is just a dream at this point, as people who don't know enough about computers and the internet to protect themselves keep flooding onto the internet.
Re:A good step forward, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
And like I said in another post, a lot of people lack awareness of how much information is being collected. How is a typical technologically-ignorant grandmother to know about tracking cookies, google analytics and other such things? How would they even know if their information was not being adequately protected? They probably wouldn't.
Re:A good step forward, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's a bit more gray-area than "volunteer to give your information to a corporation". Most sites from which Google collects data don't even inform the user that Google is collecting statistical data on their browsing of the site, much less ask their permission.
Fingerpoint-o-rama (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how all the oligarchs are snooping on our communications and pointing the fingers at everyone else.
Google & Microsoft accuse the Federal Gov't:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/04/03/1728214 [slashdot.org]
Microsoft accuses Google:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/03/31/2223228 [slashdot.org]
The Federal Gov't accuses Google:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/03/31/1428244 [slashdot.org]
Hey, here's an idea: What say we actually consider the spirit of the 4th amendment, eh? We need an example though... Some form of remote communication that existed back in the day when people had more recent knowledge of the importance of the Bill of Rights. Ideally something that could regularly fall into the hands of both the government and third parties. Something like United States Postal Service mail.
See, USPS mail is pretty much the earliest significant form of remote communications in the United States. It goes all the way back to 1775. The policies regarding the privacy of postal mail are pretty much exactly what the founding fathers intended, so we can be pretty sure they are what a bunch of smart, argumentative guys would come up with when seriously considering -- from up close and personal -- the dangers of invasion of privacy.
Now what are those standards? Well, if you tamper with the mail, you go to jail. If you open someone else's mail, you go to jail. If the government wants to open your mail, they need a warrant. They need a real warrant, from a judge and supported by oath or affirmation, not a flunky clerk with a rubber stamp and a pen register.
That is what the 4th amendment is about: You have a right to be secure in your papers. Genuinely secure. Not "the government won't look unless they feel like it", but genuinely secure that it won't happen for light or transient reasons. Even if those papers are not in your home or your possession. Even if they are in an envelope that can be seen through. Even if that envelope could be opened and resealed without anyone knowing. You mess with the mail, you go to jail.
That is the standard of the people who actually faced, fought, and defeated oligarchy. It is a good one. It is fundamental to true liberty -- the liberty of having a truly free mind. It is the standard we should apply to all private communications. Google, Microsoft, FBI, everybody -- keep your cotton picking noses out of my private communications unless you have a real warrant or my express written permission (notarized, of course).
Re:End-to-end encryption. (Score:2, Insightful)
That only assures your privacy to the extent that the person on the other end is trustworthy.
Re:A good step forward, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that a handful of these corporations are anywhere near privacy reform legislation makes me nervous.
There is one simple reason why the corps want strengthening of privacy laws: they have a weak spot with those that are standing when they preach cloud computing/storage today. A keen customer would immediately ask, "but how safe is my data with you?". And they can write privacy policies etc, and compete on those (like MS recently tries to positively spin its relatively lax retention policies vs Google ones), but they cannot ignore the law.