privacy, not just a government issue

[Old Rocks]

There has been much said about the governments surveilance of citizens, and justly so. Yet the surveilance by private companies is just a great, if not greater.

If you click on Dictionary.com, you have 234 cookies installed on your computer or smart phone, 233 of which collect data about and report information on the user's online activities to advertisers and others who purchase the data.

Companies, as well as governments, use a technology known as Deep Packet Inspection to pick out key phrases on the net, and flag the senders for further examinaton and reconstitution.

Max Schrems, a twentyfive year old Austrian law student used the EU's data protection law to request all data collected about him on Facebook. He recieved a CD with 1200 pages of data, most of which he thought he deleted from his computer.

Ideas?

 

[waltky]

Granny says dey better get a warrant if dey wanna search her cellphone...

Supreme Court takes on privacy in digital age
Apr 27,`14: WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two Supreme Court cases about police searches of cellphones without warrants present vastly different views of the ubiquitous device.

Is it a critical tool for a criminal or is it an American's virtual home? How the justices answer that question could determine the outcome of the cases being argued Tuesday. A drug dealer and a gang member want the court to rule that the searches of their cellphones after their arrest violated their right to privacy in the digital age. The Obama administration and California, defending the searches, say cellphones are no different from anything else a person may be carrying when arrested. Police may search those items without a warrant under a line of high court cases reaching back 40 years. What's more, said Donald Verrilli Jr., the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, "Cellphones are now critical tools in the commission of crimes."

The cases come to the Supreme Court amid separate legal challenges to the massive warrantless collection of telephone records by the National Security Agency and the government's use of technology to track Americans' movements. Librarians, the news media, defense lawyers and civil liberties groups on the right and left are trying to convince the justices that they should take a broad view of the privacy issues raised when police have unimpeded access to increasingly powerful devices that may contain a wealth of personal data: emails and phone numbers, photographs, information about purchases and political affiliations, books and a gateway to even more material online. "Cellphones and other portable electronic devices are, in effect, our new homes," the American Civil Liberties Union said in a court filing that urged the court to apply the same tough standards to cellphone searches that judges have historically applied to police intrusions into a home.

Under the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, police generally need a warrant before they can conduct a search. The warrant itself must be based on "probable cause," evidence that a crime has been committed. But in the early 1970s, the Supreme Court carved out exceptions for officers dealing with people they have arrested. The court was trying to set clear rules that allowed police to look for concealed weapons and prevent the destruction of evidence. Briefcases, wallets, purses and crumpled cigarette packs all are fair game if they are being carried by a suspect or within the person's immediate control.

Car searches pose a somewhat different issue. In 2009, in the case of a suspect handcuffed and placed in the back seat of a police cruiser, the court said police may search a car only if the arrestee "is within reaching distance of the passenger compartment" or if police believe the car contains evidence relevant to the crime for which the person had been arrested. The Supreme Court is expected to resolve growing division in state and federal courts over whether cellphones deserve special protection.

MORE

 

[Asclepias]

Dont use the internet. Become an intelligent consumer. Ditch your cellphone. It functions as the embedded tracking device many envisioned and feared except they figured out a way to make you pay for the privilege of having it.

 

[skookerasbil]

Ray.....this shit is so messed up. I do a search for anything on-line and within seconds am bombarded by ad's on most any page I navigate to.
I continue to stick to the old time basic flip phone.....I text and make calls only........no internet........no stoopid ass Smartphone for me. I have enough aggravation in my life, although Im reasonably sure my texts have me on some terror watch list.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Disable cookies, browse in private mode, do not sign in to google or any other web site, learn how to remove browsing traces from your computer.

You have options when it comes to private surveillance you have none when it comes to government surveillance.