[aklug] Re: I find this statement a bit worrisome

On Tue, 8 Dec 2009, Joshua J. Kugler wrote:

> On Tuesday 08 December 2009, Arthur Corliss said something like:
>> This isn't a question about morality or ethics, it's a question about
>> a constitutional right to privacy.
>
> [citation needed]
>
> Protection against unlawful search and seizure? Yup, but constitutional
> right to privacy? Unless I'm forgetting my constitution (which is
> entirely possible, it's been a while since I read it through), it's not
> in there. If you are putting information into a public forum
> (Facebook, Wave, etc), then you have no expected privacy. If they are
> poking into your e-mail, well, then, that's still an issue the courts
> have not made 100% clear. Yes, it's "private communication," but it's
> going over lines somebody else owns, so...caveat emailor. :) PGP FTW!

Under the Bill of Rights, which amends the Constitution, the right to
privacy is not explicitly granted but considered to be covered under
amendments 9 & 10. #9, specifically, has been the basis of several Supreme
Court rulings, including Griswold vs Connecticut.

The irony here, of course, is that while these amendments is often invoked on
issues I disagree with personally, I don't disagree with the court's basic
premise that enumeration of specific rights does not deny any other retained
by the people. The 10th amendment clearly states that any rights not
explicitly delegated by the Constitution are reserved to the states and/or
people.

That, in a nutshell, is the where we get our right to privacy, and what
existing case law is based upon. We'll ignore the fact for now that the
government rarely operates in good faith with those restrictions.

Regardless, my statement stands. If you're storing personal files/records
with Google Apps or private communications with Gmail, you've already
probably waived many of your rights based on their user agreements. Many do
so based on marketing by Google that it will "do the right thing" or that
they're too insignificant to become a target. Good luck with that. You may
not be a target, but you most definitely can easily become collateral
damage.

         --Arthur Corliss
           Live Free or Die
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Received on Tue Dec 8 10:18:00 2009