I think what's troubling is really a combination of two independent circumstances.
First, one company has access to tons of my personal data. I trust this company, they seem well intentioned and they have a very reasonable privacy policy. It's also extremely useful to me to have all of my data (email, personal contacts, calendar) in one place and accessible via a web-interface.
However, when you throw in the second variable, namely, the mixed-bag which is the US judicial system it can all be torpedoed with the flick of a wrist.
I really would have preferred to have seen the judge tell the bank "tough shit" and have someone (either the email recipient or EFF) put up more of a legal resistance to this court order.
True, the court system is rather unpredictable in this new territory. To me it seems reasonably fair though - as the owner of the account was unreachable, and many other people's private data was at stake. I would say that Google followed the rules properly, even if the bank didn't.
I found the Liskula Cohen blogger case much more troublesome, and the ongoing TCI Journal case is especially disturbing.
Comments
To be fair to Google, they did nothing until ordered by a US court. Is there any more you can ask?
I think what's troubling is really a combination of two independent circumstances.
First, one company has access to tons of my personal data. I trust this company, they seem well intentioned and they have a very reasonable privacy policy. It's also extremely useful to me to have all of my data (email, personal contacts, calendar) in one place and accessible via a web-interface.
However, when you throw in the second variable, namely, the mixed-bag which is the US judicial system it can all be torpedoed with the flick of a wrist.
I really would have preferred to have seen the judge tell the bank "tough shit" and have someone (either the email recipient or EFF) put up more of a legal resistance to this court order.
True, the court system is rather unpredictable in this new territory. To me it seems reasonably fair though - as the owner of the account was unreachable, and many other people's private data was at stake. I would say that Google followed the rules properly, even if the bank didn't.
I found the Liskula Cohen blogger case much more troublesome, and the ongoing TCI Journal case is especially disturbing.