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A Polite Message from the
Surveillance State
Annalee Newitz
AlterNet
Wednesday January 30, 2008
Say what you want about Google being an evil corporate overlord
that steals all of your private data, turns it into info-mulch,
and then injects it into the technoslaves to keep them drugged
and helpless. There are still some good things about the company.
For example, Google's IM program, Google Talk, sends you a warning
message alerting you when the person on the other end of your
chat is recording your chat session.
Just the other day I was chatting with somebody about something
slightly personal and noticed that she'd suddenly turned on Record
for our chat. I knew everything I was saying was being logged
and filed in her Gmail. In this case I wasn't too concerned. For
one thing, I wasn't saying anything I'd regret seeing in print.
I'm used to the idea that anything I say on chat might be recorded
and logged.
What was different about this experience was that Google warned
me first -- told me point-blank that I was basically under surveillance
from the Google server, which would automatically log and save
that conversation. I appreciated that. It meant I could opt out
of the conversation and preserve my privacy. It also meant that
other people using Gtalk, who might not have had the expectation
that all of their chat sessions might be recorded, would be enlightened.
(Article continues below)
It also reminded me forcefully that Google is a far more polite
and privacy-concerned evil overlord than the United States government.
Right now members of Congress are trying to pass a law that would
grant immunity to large telcos like AT&T that have been spying
on their customers' private phone conversations and passing along
what they've learned to the National Security Agency. The law,
called the Protect America Act, would allow telephone and Internet
providers to hand over all private data on their networks to the
government -- without notifying their customers and without any
court supervision of what amounts to mass wiretapping.
Last year the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued AT&T for
violating the Fourth Amendment when a whistle-blower at AT&T
revealed that the company was handing over private information
to the NSA without warrants. That case has been working its way
through the courts, and making some headway; in fact, it was starting
to look like AT&T would be forced to pay damages to its customers
for violating their rights. But the Protect America Act would
stop this court case in its tracks by granting retroactive immunity
to AT&T and any other company that spied on people for the
NSA without warrants.
The whole situation is insane. First, it's outrageous that telcos
would illegally hand over their private customer data to the government.
And second, it's even more outrageous that when its scheme was
discovered, the government tried to pass a law making it retroactively
legal for AT&T to have broken one of the most fundamental
of our civil rights: protection of our private data from the government.
Imagine what would happen if the phone and Internet systems in
our country had the same warnings on them that Gtalk has. Every
time you picked up the phone to make a call or logged on to the
Internet, you'd get a helpful little message: "Warning: the
government is recording everything that you are saying and doing
right now." Holy crap.
The good news is that it's not too late. The Protect America
Act must pass both houses of Congress to become law, so you can
still alert your local congress critters in the House that you
don't want retroactive immunity for telcos that are logging your
private conversations for the NSA. Find out more at stopthespying.org.
And remember, everything you say and do is being logged. This
polite message has been brought to you by the surveillance state.
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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