EFF, AT&T and Google all on the same side of this privacy fight

Here's a turn-up for the books: AT&T, Google, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and many others have formed a pro-privacy coalition that's asked Congress for updates to wiretapping laws to close loopholes that make it easy to listen in on "Web 2.0" without a warrant: "the current electronic privacy laws are woefully outdated and must be updated to provide clear privacy protections that reflect the always-on, location-enabled, Web 2.0 world of the 21st century." (EFF is suing AT&T over its complicity in the Bush-era illegal NSA wiretapping, and has filed an objection to Google's Book Search settlement on privacy grounds -- it says something that all three organizations agree on the need for this update to privacy law)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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AirPillo

I’d expect to see this among headlines like “China champions human rights treaty”, and “Somalian pirates establish charity to benefit wealthy vacationers”.
Anonymous

I’m sorry, but I am having a difficult time taking this seriously. AT+T is part of complete data mining of the WWW for the US Gov– completely illegal; if they actually want to be taken seriously, they need to stop this — first. Secondly, if they are interested in privacy, ENCRYPT all of their user’s email and traffic with an unbreakable crypto.
Galadriel

Google? Really? What happened to “If you have something you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it”?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  What happened to “If you have something you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it”?
  
  What happened to “Many laws are gross civil and human rights violations under international law”? Sometimes doing something that you don’t want every one to know might be private, consensual sex.
  - sirdook
    
    Antinous,
    
    I think Galadriel was referring to this: http://boingboing.net/2009/12/09/google-ceo-says-priv.html
    
    It was a dig at Google.
MrsBug

What’s the catch? Does the EFF drop its lawsuit against AT&T if AT&T join this and get it passed?
Anonymous

AT&T?!?!

Really? That’s gotta be a typo.
SleighBoy

“Bush-era illegal NSA wiretapping”

Cory, are you suggesting that AT&T no longer allows the feds to tap their fiber 24/7 because Bush is out of office? I think more than one AT&T tech could correct that notion right quick.
- Cowicide
  
  I don’t think Google and it’s Buzz bullshit has looked very good lately either. I was opted into that crap without my knowledge through my gmail accounts. I didn’t get any kind of notice because I use gmail with POP in Apple Mail. They could have at least sent me an email letting me know I was about to lose my privacy… but no.
  
  So I hear about Buzz through various sites talking about the class action lawsuits against it (based on privacy issues) and I go to opt out of Buzz and found that it’s a tricky process and difficult to tell if you’ve even successfully opted out or not.
  
  Very scummy, Google. VERY scummy.
  - Nonentity
    
    Odd, I was under the impression that the only thing you would be “opted into” in Buzz is letting people – who already have your contact email – have you show up in their list.
    
    There’s definitely a problem there for people who forward another email account to their gmail account, if they get emails from other gmail users, but I could see how that could honestly be missed by the developers.
- Dewi Morgan
  
  Pretty sure “Bush-era” in that context meant “that’s what they’re suing about”. That is, the case is about the wiretapping they got caught out on, not the wiretapping they may well be doing now.
phillyberg

This is a big coalition and CDT is part of it as well. Digital Due Process will help connect all groups pushing to update ECPA. Check out our blog post here: http://www.cdt.org/blogs/harley-geiger/updating-privacy-protections-21st-century-communications
avt_tor

@SleighBoy > I think warrants and due process are part of the process now.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  One can only hope, av_tor.
  
  I always hope (and I honestly feel this outcome is not beyond the realm of possibility) that anyone surveilling me and my habits becomes bored: first to tears, and then to death.
  That’d show them.
  
  More seriously, it would be nice to see the USA recognize some explicit rights to individual privacy in the Constitution, rather than leaving such to be inferred by the Courts – or not – from other Constitutional provisions; or to be granted – or withheld – at the whim of the Legislature.
  
  As a foreign citizen, I hate to butt in, but perhaps just such a full-blown Constitutional Amendment is in order to ensure that the full interests of Americans are served by the law?
  
  In any event, it seems that a debate about US privacy laws have begun. Good.
  
  The gorilla in this room, of course, is the issue of abortion.
- straponego
  
  So you think that, now that everybody who broke the law executing warrantless wiretaps was given retroactive immunity, and it’s clear that nobody will ever be held accountable in any way for breaking such laws, nobody will break such laws again? Obama, Leahy, Pelosi… everybody who could have pushed for accountability changed their minds at about the same time. Most of the Bush appointees are still in place. But yeah, the TLAs have totally come to heel under the rule of law now. Gotcha. Awesome.
  - sirdook
    
    So you think that, now that everybody who broke the law executing warrantless wiretaps was given retroactive immunity, and it’s clear that nobody will ever be held accountable in any way for breaking such laws, nobody will break such laws again?
    
    Actually the same law that granted retro-active immunity also made the stuff that was ‘illegal Bush-era wiretapping’ more or less legal. So in that sense, those laws aren’t likely to be broken again.
    - straponego
      
      True, and a good point. That’s why I said “such laws”… thought the post was long enough as was.
Anonymous

New technology has advanced at breakneck speed while electronic privacy law remains stuck in the digital dark ages. It is confusing and inadequate and that hurts internet users and businesses alike, which is why both major companies and privacy advocate organizations agree that ECPA must be updated.

The ACLU supports the coalition principles and _also_ believes that the law should extend probable cause protection to other types of records (like who you call, text and email), that illegally obtained digital information shouldnâ€™t be used in court, and that there should be strict record-keeping of all law enforcement requests.

You can read the ACLUâ€™s position here: http://dotrights.org/ECPA

Please tell your congressional representative that you want better online privacy protection:
http://bit.ly/9AC49y

Demand a privacy upgrade â€“ Demand your dotRights!