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In reply to the discussion: Snowden: NSA employees routinely pass around intercepted nude photos [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)My e-mail account is closed to the public. If I have to use a password to get to my own information, that means I have an expectation of privacy to that information. The NSA breaches my privacy when it tries to identify who I am or looks at any information that I have protected with a password. That is where the line is drawn. If I have information posted on a website that is my own and bears my name, that is intended by me to be for public viewing, then any branch of government and any person using the internet may view it.
But if I use a pseudonym when I post on DU, for example, it is because I am claiming privacy as to my identity on DU. That means I do not want the government to look behind the veil of my pseudonym and find out my identity. The authors of the Federalist Papers, Benjamin Franklin as a journalist, Mark Twain, all used pseudonyms for various reasons. This is a great American tradition. Some used the pseudonyms for reasons other than privacy, but the pseudonym, the password is to be respected.
The government does not have the right to investigate or find out the private data, statements, etc. as to which I have expressed that I have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
A password creates a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Think of a corporation that has trade secrets. Would you require that corporation to keep the trade secrets off the computers of company employees? Can company employees, let's say researchers for a pharmaceutical company or financial analysts for a pension company be expect privacy with regard to the trade secrets they may discuss on the internet? (Most of them use encryption but still the government is specifically targeting those who use encryption I understand.)
The internet could not be used by businesses for receiving payments and processing credit cards if the internet were truly in the public domain.
Think about it. The internet is not simply public domain. Some of it is public domain. Most of it is not.
The government is constitutionally barred from collecting or reviewing private information without a warrant based on probable cause.