General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: My Life in Circles: Why Metadata is Incredibly Intimate [View all]intaglio
(8,170 posts)History and experience you conveniently ignore.
Do you deny that USPS workers are Government employees? Do you deny these employees have been staring at your mail for a couple of hundred years.
Legal. Looking at metadata is exactly congruent with looking at an envelope, return address and all. Are you claiming that USPS workers are committing an illegal act by looking at your mail? What of your neighbour who finds one of your letters mixed in with his own, is he acting illegally by dropping the letter through your letterbox.
You think metadata is not somehow different? Then how does your e-mail and your web pages arrive at your computer because there is not a series of tubes that directly connect you to the website you are viewing. Packets of data can be moved by many routes between you and your screen. Don't believe me? then check the standards required by W3C.
Metadata constrains what can legally be examined, which is why a warrant for further examination of content needs to be obtained from FISC in exactly the same way that a warrant to examine the contents of a postal packet should be obtained
Decent. Which standards of decency are you claiming? and how do they relate to reality? "Everybody knows" is not good enough any more than "all right thinking people".
Finally ... Godwin - you lose.