Begin forwarded message:
From: Daniel Weitzner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: January 22, 2006 3:01:13 PM EST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Search queries *can* contain personal
information
For IP if you like...
Of course it's true that the DOJ subpoena is a civil subpoena, not
one premised on criminal activity. However, that doesn't mean that
the permissible scope of the subpoena is more narrow or that there's
any greater protection for privacy rights. Consider, for example,
that in the course of the Enron investigation, the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission not only subpoened ALL of the email sent by
ENRON employees over a period of a number of years and then made
virtually the entire archive PUBLIC (It's available here: http://
www.cs.cmu.edu/~enron/)
The employees were given a limited opportunity to request that
private messages be removed before disclosure but people I've spoken
with about this say that very few exercised that option.
As many have pointed out, the Google dispute, together with
situations like the Enron email only go to show how badily in need of
revision our privacy laws are.
Danny
On Jan 22, 2006, at 1:44 PM, David Farber wrote:
Begin forwarded message:
From: Pamela Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: January 22, 2006 1:30:21 PM EST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Search queries *can* contain personal
information
RE what Henrik asked:
"In the third bullet point they say that they will share it to satisfy
any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable
governmental request. IANAL, but I thought that a legally obtained
subpoena would fall into that category. If the request on top of that
are search URLs and search terms from one week, all separatd from
personal identifying information, then I think that they are creating
a storm in teacup. If thy were to challenge the legality of this,
shouldn't they (again IANAL) at least file something to that effet,
rathere than just flatly refusing to comply."
Obtaining a subpoena, as Henrik puts it, implies a criminal
action, which this isn't. This is civil, whereby a party just mails
out what it wants, and the receiving party can analyze to see if it
meets with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Just because you
get a civil subpoena, it doesn't mean you just hand over everything
asked for without that analysis. The Federal Rules of Procedure
permit objections to a subpoena. Here's Rule 26, on scope of
discovery: http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/Rule26.htm You can
read about protective orders here:
http://lexnet.bravepages.com/Rule26.htm
[..]
--
Daniel J. Weitzner +1.617.253.8036 (MIT)
Principal Research Scientist +1.202.364.4750 (DC)
MIT CSAIL Decentralized Information Group
W3C Technology & Society Domain Leader
http://www.w3.org/People/Weitzner.html
blog: http://people.w3.org/~djweitzner/blog/
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