A few thoughts: 1) There is no such thing as privacy anymore, at least with respect to anything electronic. I know this because I wanted to be the head of a l

A few thoughts: 1) There is no such thing as privacy anymore, at least with respect to anything electronic. I know this because I wanted to be the head of a large online community (I worked on a program which I hoped would become the next Facebook), and I studied everything I could about security/privacy that I could for many years. 2) It would be better, far better, if, when users signed up on Twitter (or any other online service for that matter) if there was a big screen which comes up, with big letters, and says "Everything you say could potentially be taken out of context, could potentially be used against you in Court, and/or could potentially be spun on the News Media or by other people in such a way so as to destroy your reputation, livelihood, and potentially your life." This would be honest, ethical, up-front. "Forewarned is forearmed", as they say... 3) When Jack Dorsey filed his articles of incorporation, for his company (which Venture Capitalists require, and for good reason, if they didn't, they wouldn't be able to sue if/when the founder skips town on them!), but when he did this, he made a legally binding CONTRACT with the Government. Oh sure, it may have been a State government, but let's remember the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution (the Constitution is also a CONTRACT, incidentally...). But once you do this, even though you might not be liable financially on a personal level for your company, you have basically set yourself up to be REGULATED, REGULATED, REGULATED, by the Government and its in-no-shortage-of-supply Lawyers... (Regulated is another fun word for "they're going to tell you what to do" <g>). (Now, I'm not saying that's a bad thing... historically that regulation created some major wins for society, case in point, the meat packing industry, many many years ago, when proper sanitary conditions were not followed, and there are many other examples of this). But the thing is, this Judge is making his decision based on that CONTRACT (the contract is the tip of the iceberg, by the way, it basically makes the company accept ALL of the thousands of miles of statutory U.S. code, it's sort a lead-in to that). So, based on what I know about U.S. Law -- the Judge is probably, probably not wrong, but remember, he's making his decision based on a) The CONTRACT, aka "Articles Of Incorporation". b) The miles and miles of State, Federal, Statutory Code and Agency Code (since federal agencies are quasi-law creating entities) that the said CONTRACT (a), forces the company to accept... In other words: c) Lawyers, not technologists, are running the show... <g> And you wondered how "The Swamp" works... <g> Hey, I think I remember some song lyrics (Depeche Mode, actually!): "The handshake seals the contract from the contract There's no turning back [...] The holiday was fun packed The contract still intact..." -Depeche Mode, Grabbing Hands