NSA memo pushed to 'rethink' 4th Amendment

[cascadiance]

19. Just to clarify "private ownership", who are you referring to as "owners" of our private data?...

That is the fundamental question. The fourth amendment was written at a time where our private information was in physical objects, etc. that we could keep on our own physical property, so that the ownership being our own (and not shared with a corporate entity) was far more clear then. But what was also clear was our founders' feelings that we as the owner of that physical property privately should be protected from others trying to invade that private space. They would want something today that would protect us individuals as "owners" of our private information.

We have complications of shared ownership of private information now, not only with the companies that house our private information online, but with those we communicate in private with through messaging, emails, phone calls, etc. It's a lot more complicated, and we need to be very careful not to open another can of worms if and when we change laws in this area, especially with an amendment, but we need to make sure that we as citizens are as much of the process that helps craft these laws as those either at the top of companies or the government doing so, as we will be the ones that get stepped on continually if we don't.

Earlier there were laws created to protect people's credit card numbers that were kept online by vendors who were taking them for online purchases, etc. As an engineer, I know of that effort, as after those laws were put in place, we had to prioritize encrypting that data we had with people's credit card numbers as many other web vendors did then. I even made sure that what didn't get missed was some log messages when database errors occurred that unencrypted CC numbers weren't being logged in the log files either. We need rules like this to make sure they get followed and that more and more holes that keep our privacy from being protected get shored up.

Should a Google, Facebook or Yahoo hiring manager be able to look at your private consumer-based online search history, email and messaging content, ad targeting information as a part of considering whether to hire you? Many of us now have to deal with that. That has nothing to do with government claiming the right to look at your private information, and everything to do with whether you have similar protections against abuse of your privacy by private entities as well. They already have more visibly been trying to subvert people's privacy by demanding many prospective employees or prospective university students to turn over their facebook passwords or the like. A decently updated fourth amendment would stop or at least control a lot of these issues in their tracks.