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>The implication of your position is that we either have an electronically connected society, or we have an expectation of privacy, but not both. The nature of

>The implication of your position is that we either have an electronically connected society, or we have an expectation of privacy, but not both. The nature of technology in general, and the internet in particular, involves the co-mingling of property on the site of some 3rd party for the benefit of all. Agreed. It's a strange position to take that because it's technically possible for the government to access the information (owed to the location of the data), then they should be allowed to do so. This could be used to rationalize virtually unlimited access to otherwise private communications in today's hyper-connected world. But, capabilities that we have had in the past (e.g. wiretapping) have always been checked in order to preserve privacy (or, put more Constitutionally, protect us from unreasonable search and seizure). Phone calls have always involved third-party transmission by the telcos. Why is that different from data sitting on a third-party server? In general, however, it becomes silly to argue what should be permissible based on the ancillary nuances of technical architecture. It's a bit of a red-herring. The real question is "what is the intent of the protections afforded by the Constitution and are we upholding that intent". To argue that "the government should have a particular right because there's a client-server architecture involved vs. P2P" is spurious in this context.

rayiner 13y ago
> ancillary nuances of technical architecture It's patently ridiculous to call these "ancillary nuances of technical architecture." These are stark distinctions: is the information under your personal control or did you voluntarily give access to and possession of that information to someone else? In this particular case with the NSA, it's even starker: who generated the information? The NSA is collecting information generated by AT&T about activity on AT&T's private network. It strains the imagination to try to define that as an individual's personal information. > The real question is "what is the intent of the protections afforded by the Constitution and are we upholding that intent" The intent of the protections was to guard against the invasive physical searches of homes and persons that had occurred under the British. A broader conception of "privacy" is absent from the document. A conception of privacy that is broad enough to encompass information generated by a third party and stored by that third party is purely wishful thinking.
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  >is the information under your personal control or did you voluntarily give access to and possession of that information to someone else? You are saying that by making a phone call, you are voluntarily giving information to someone else (the carrier), and so the government should able to access that data at will. And, I'm being ridiculous? >who generated the information? The NSA is collecting information generated by AT&T about activity on AT&T's private network The caller generated the data. AT&T simply collected and indexed it. There would be no data or metadata without the caller. You acknowledged this yourself in the first paragraph when you asked, "is the information under your control or did you voluntarily give possession of that information to someone else?" How could I give AT&T information that it supposedly generated? Once again, you're all over the place. And, your ridiculous argument that because AT&T offers the pipes, they should be able to do what they please with the data that is generated is tripe. You could just as well extend that to make warrantless wiretapping on all calls legal. It is all merely data on AT&T's private network, right? >The intent of the protections was to guard against the invasive physical searches of homes and persons that had occurred under the British Funny how you're so willing to update government powers based upon evolving technology, however, when it comes to the rights conferred by the Constitution to the people, you want to limit those to the technology of that day. In this case, you are literally limiting those protections to redcoats (or similar) showing up at your door and rifling through your papers. I can't believe you expect to be taken seriously.

rayiner 13y ago

> ancillary nuances of technical architecture It's patently ridiculous to call these "ancillary nuances of technical architecture." These are stark distinctions: is the information under your personal control or did you voluntarily give access to and possession of that information to someone else? In this particular case with the NSA, it's even starker: who generated the information? The NSA is collecting information generated by AT&T about activity on AT&T's private network. It strains the imagination to try to define that as an individual's personal information. > The real question is "what is the intent of the protections afforded by the Constitution and are we upholding that intent" The intent of the protections was to guard against the invasive physical searches of homes and persons that had occurred under the British. A broader conception of "privacy" is absent from the document. A conception of privacy that is broad enough to encompass information generated by a third party and stored by that third party is purely wishful thinking.

unclebucknasty 13y ago
>is the information under your personal control or did you voluntarily give access to and possession of that information to someone else? You are saying that by making a phone call, you are voluntarily giving information to someone else (the carrier), and so the government should able to access that data at will. And, I'm being ridiculous? >who generated the information? The NSA is collecting information generated by AT&T about activity on AT&T's private network The caller generated the data. AT&T simply collected and indexed it. There would be no data or metadata without the caller. You acknowledged this yourself in the first paragraph when you asked, "is the information under your control or did you voluntarily give possession of that information to someone else?" How could I give AT&T information that it supposedly generated? Once again, you're all over the place. And, your ridiculous argument that because AT&T offers the pipes, they should be able to do what they please with the data that is generated is tripe. You could just as well extend that to make warrantless wiretapping on all calls legal. It is all merely data on AT&T's private network, right? >The intent of the protections was to guard against the invasive physical searches of homes and persons that had occurred under the British Funny how you're so willing to update government powers based upon evolving technology, however, when it comes to the rights conferred by the Constitution to the people, you want to limit those to the technology of that day. In this case, you are literally limiting those protections to redcoats (or similar) showing up at your door and rifling through your papers. I can't believe you expect to be taken seriously.