TOWNSHEND — It has been widely reported that last year, Google filed a motion in U.S. District Court last year to dismiss all claims against the company for violations of Gmail privacy, claiming that a Gmail user has “no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.”
Google and others claim that assertion is supported by the U.S. Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The laws permitting and expanding domestic spying created or modified after Sept. 11, 2001 in the name of national security were enacted in fear and haste and have degraded our nation is so many ways.
But they have not degraded my expectations.
So let me be clear about what those expectations are.
I expect my bank account and credit card information to be private.
I expect my credit reports and credit history to be private.
I expect my voting record, tax records, medical records, and school records to be private.
I should have to give explicit written authorization for each and every instance an institution releases this information, whether to the government or to another company or service provider.
So yeah - when I send an email, I do expect it to be private. Just like my letters and my phone calls.
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I expect all three branches of government to support and defend these expectations of personal privacy, not take surreptitious actions to violate it. I do not expect or approve of the U.S. Postal Service to take pictures of all of my incoming and outgoing mail, but they do and have for years.
I do not expect my government to track my calls, nor my carrier to share them.
I do not expect, or approve, of anyone to review the web searches entered on my private computer.
I do not expect Google, Apple, or Microsoft to read or search my emails, nor to collude with the government in domestic spying.
It is clear that Google's “don't be evil” code of management is a mere marketing ploy. Apple has become as unAmerican as its overseas profit holdings accounts. And to be honest, no one really expected much from Microsoft after all of the lawsuits (and the quality of their products).
We vote with our dollars and with our feet, whether we abandon a corporation or politician. So consider it.
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As difficult as it will be technologically, it has come time to consider migrating away from the services of these companies and pay the price of inconvenience to deal with service providers that uphold the value of privacy and personal liberty.
According to NPR, Google has stated that the “company's attorneys also suggested that the public is savvy enough to know how their emails are handled, and that the information in them may be read by third parties.”
I am savvy enough to know what wrong looks like, even if lawyers and legislators can't recall.
The truth of the matter is that the activities of the government are far more the business of the people than the activities of the people are that of the government.