Fergie's Tech Blog

Courts Should Shield Web and E-Mail Data From Nosy Cops

Jennifer Granick writes on Wired:

For much of human history, we have been able to conduct our private lives separately from our public ones. Upstanding, productive citizens during the day, we were free to be seditious, depressed or kinky by night. However, the computers we use in our homes during those private hours create and preserve evidence of our interests, relationships and beliefs, blurring the line between private and public.

Congress and the courts have responded by giving privacy protection to the contents of communications, including phone calls and e-mail messages, but denying strong protection to transactional information like phone numbers dialed and websites visited. Two recent Fourth Amendment cases illustrate that we need to understand that internet-use records are more like mind readers than phone bills if we are to retain any privacy in our communications.

posted by Fergie @ 7/18/2007 10:56:00 AM