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Leighmf ~ You make a very good point. This is a free service that is compensated by gathering information. It also is above board by stating it's policies directly in the service agreement that everyone agrees to before using it-- whether they read it or not. Also, this type of compromise of privacy opens the doors for many entrepreneurs to circumnavigate it. It opens the doors for other email carriers who offer private service for a fee. It also opens the doors for security software that can encrypt messages for a monthly fee. The possibilities for creative entrepreneurs is endless whenever needs arise in society. Let the free market decide which privacy policy is better. Privacy from the government is guaranteed in the Fourth Amendment, however, that document only applies to the federal government and not private corporations. Private corporations should be free to offer their products and services as they wish. The only authority they should have to bow down to is the authority of their customers.
The only objection that I have is if any of these other potential private email services are intimidated--or in any other way forced--by the government to violate our Fourth Amendment rights after complete privacy is offered in the service agreement and mutually agreed upon in writing. I also have a problem with the government forcing any company to covertly turn over any confidential information without the consent of their customers. There is a thin line here where the Fourth Amendment might be crossed and that is a line I cannot see crossed for any reason. As much as I personally despise child predators, the clear and present danger to society represented by an unrestricted government predator is a much greater threat. As President Kennedy once said, "What value is there in insuring that our society survives if it's traditions do not survive with it." It is foolish to sacrifice liberty for security; however, if someone desires to sacrifice their privacy for a monetary savings in a free market, they certainly should be at liberty to do so. There is nothing in the constitution forbidding foolishness.
I think Google had to act in this case. Isn't it the law now that ISPs can be held responcible for the data that their customers move through their systems? Granted it is a supremely stupid law, given the way data moves through the Internet, but it has been used by the Feds to go after internet companies.
Google didn't act as police, it acted as an observing bystander.
And what Google was checking for in the e-mail is contraband itself, not a mere mention of an illegal act. That's like having a bomb-sniffing dog.
The algorithm checks e-mailed images against known images of child pornography supplied by police. Ironically, this means that Google must possess its own huge cache of it. If that corporation were a person, we'd be upset.
LeighMF, I think you mean "SWAT" team, not "Squat Team", unless there's a joke I'm missing.
BTW, I love the story from a year or so ago, wherein a child pornographer sent or posted a picture of himself, with his face swirled. All the FBI had to do was unswirl his face.
"Would you rather see pedophiles go unpunished"
well would you?
well said Leigh.
Here's my point-
You do not have to wear a seat belt, but it is the law. I am not going to call the highway patrol on my cell phone when I see you without your seatbelt, only when I see your head through the windshield.
I don't recall any of those "supposed" outlandish occurrences you mentioned ever taking place, however this child porn occurrence is real.
Imaginary "what ifs?" are not "issues."
You do not have to use corporation e-mail for privacy, and if the service belongs to the corporation how is it any of your business? Sell your stock. We have bigger problems than G-MAIL filtering.
Get with American History...
Once again, we are off-topic with a fantastical extreme generalization, supposing the Post Office would "open all 1st class mail."
I didn't say or suggest anything about the post office. I said - G-MAIL is free to use. But, it does belong to Google. Google has to be responsible, and if something atrocious happened, the public would rage against them for not stopping it. We all know cell phones, land lines, restaurant conversations, and internet communications are not private.
I use a "burn phone." The last time I bought stamps for my private mail at the USPS they were $.43@.
Not one place in either of my posts did I mention The Post Office. However, now that you bring it up, we are required to sign papers that packages we are mailing do not contain contraband, including kiddie porn, anthrax, cash, and ricin- there is a long list of it.
If the Post Office has good reason to suspect contraband, the Squat Team will be there with bells on. Employees are also allowed to use their noses, feelers, and common sense- it is not necessary to open a package for a P.O. to call it suspicious and bring in the feds.
In this case, an algorithmic filter, not a human snooper, flagged a bad apple, and it was right. Google did not make the arrest, but they were obligated to call law enforcement.
Further, had the executives at J.P. Morgan Chase in the WTC listened to their risk analyst, Indira Singh, weeks ahead of the atttack, about all the red flags P-Tech software filters generated on her computer screen, there would have been Law Enforcement in the Towers way ahead of the disaster. Instead, in her Senate testimony, Ms. Singh described how she was told to ignore the red flags (all concerning suspicious cash transfers). When she insisted there were problems, the P-Tech Consultants were brought in and she was silenced, only to then lose hundreds of her friends and co-workers in the disaster, barely making it out to tell the story.
These 9-11 red flags appeared as a result of the same type of screening procedures used for monitoring predators on the internet. Where CHILDREN are concerned there should be no question as to whether a corporation has the right to let police decide if a predator is using their services to lure, damage or kill them.
PS- I think when you open a G-Mail account the Terms of Use prohibit a number of behaviors, including pedophilia. You agree to the the terms. The company has a right to know, and a responsibility to monitor what it is harboring.
Do we have the right to look for a rat's nest if our security system wires are being eaten? Then what, do we tell the rats to leave, or call an animal removal expert?
Yeah so what is your point other than what most everyone, including Mr. Hartman, already agrees with; child pornography is bad. This is not about child pornography, it is about private email companies reading your emails and acting as Big Brother. If they reported that you didn't claim payment received for overhauling your neighbor's yard on your tax return, how would you feel about that. Or if you said you could just kill your sister for dating your boss and they made you a suspect in assault, how would you feel about that, when you had nothing to do with it?
The issue is corporations monitoring your communication and reporting to law enforcement, not porn...get with the discussion.
Change your passwords, Kiddies! The bad old Russians have allegedly stolen 1.2 billion passwords and usernames in an internet heist affecting 420,000 web sites. But, it's probably just the CIA doing the hacking and then posing as bad old Russians as a way of the old "wagging-the-dog" ploy. This is probably just the propaganda to add to the lies they are telling us about Russia or the separatists shooting down MH17 when in fact is was the US backed Ukrainians who did the dirty deed. Right now, they believe that they have to be very, very down on the Russians and this bit of propaganda (true or not) is part of the game of hegemony by the US.
By the way, you can't have true freedom of speech or of the press if you start picking it apart with things you personally believe is appalling. One day, in the future, the police may very well be coming after the pornographers who peddle the biblical smut as well....smut that one day will be considered "disgusting, immoral, and very, very illegal".
Greenthumb: I had similar experiences on airliners. Once, what looked like smoke was coming out of the overhead ventilators..very disconcerting...but the pilot said not to worry...it was just condensation as we were descending and circling the airport for a landing.
Another time we had all boarded the plane at Phoenix airport and they announced that they had found something wrong with one of the engines and that we should all just be patient while the looked at the problem. It was so darn hot that we were all sweating profusely. We had to sit there for over an hour. They could, at least have had us go back into the air-conditioned terminal to wait.
Another time I was sitting near the window on the plane and the guy sitting beside me kept coughing and coughing...I kept thinking what if he had TB, or something, I tried to keep my face against the window with a pillow covering the side of my face closest to the person coughing.
Another time, as I was flying from Paris to Dhahran and passing over the med. sea approaching Egypt, two military jets buzzed us flying one on each side of our plane then shot off into somewhere else. I wondered if they were going to shoot us down. Could have been Israeli jets and I still remember the USS Liberty.
Another time when I was flying out of Bahrain, which was a short hop from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (where I worked), on my way to Bangkok, Thailand, this drunken Saudi guy was loudly singing and banging the back of my seat. It was late and there was a lot of people on board trying to get some sleep, including me. I finally got ticked off and jumped up out of my seat and went to his and picked him up by his clothes and slammed him down in his seat and told him to shut up and quit banging my seat. I swear, now, the guy looked just like Osama bin Laden. Didn't even know about OBL back then but I've always wondered since...was that OBL? He did shut up and settled down after that and the stewardess came by shortly after that and thanked me! Liquor is not allowed in Saudi Arabia (although some people do sneak it in or brew or distill it themselves...as long as they are not caught). But Bahrain allows liquor and they have lots of bars especially in the airport. So a lot of people get drunk in Bahrain during the stop over. I would not have been able to get away with that action if we had still been in Saudi Arabia, though. I probably would have been thrown into prison for a while, then deported.
leighmf -- Are you suggesting the post office open all 1st class mail to find child pornograpers?
If you want to harp on lousy bad trans-national corporations, try Pepsico, Firestone, and Bush Liberia.
No one forces Americans to use g-mail and g-mail is a free service offered to glean consumers for marketing. G-mail is not a constitutional privilege and does not warranty privacy.
If a cashier is given a counterfeit bill what happens? They call the police, and if it was a bill someone slipped to you, you won't be re-imbursed. Is the cashier acting as an arm of the law?
If you get the license number of a hit and run vehicle, or a drive-by massacre, are you overstepping by calling the police?
Why, a car salesman might even cut your credit card in half when he sees your defaulted student loans. What is that?
I have been at kid parties at franchise party places and there were employed watch people in every room to prevent predation or kidnapping.
Children, the weak, and the helpless are entitled to protection from predators. It is ridiculous to prattle about G-mail, which everyone should know is NOT private, when kids are getting stolen, sold, raped, tortured, imprisoned, and used for experiments or the games of perverts.
I can see the conservatives response already:
"Would you rather pedophiles go unpunished?"
As much as we should be asking how much gmail is actually snooping on our emails, the majority of Americans sacrificing their freedoms for slight security to make rare catches like this simply enforces their compliance with the status-quo.
Does anyone think Homeland Security doesn't monitor Google along with everything else?
I think Google lawyers were warding off possible liability. The algorithms are supposed to keep the search engine useful to searchers, not criminals and search engine cheat-hogs. Plus, reporting slave trading, domestic abuse, and child exploitation is a community responsibility.
The internet has opened new avenues of dangers and addictions to kids and there has to be a line drawn.
If you have a birth certificate, driver's license, state i.d., utlility bill, have been to a hospital, filled a prescription, paid taxes, or applied for credit, they know who you are.
Yeah Marc, we live an' learn.
I quit YouTube when they started requiring that I have a Google account. I will NEVER have a Google account. I won't even use google maps; I use yahoo maps. And the old fashoined ones, you know, printed on actual paper!
Note to Thom or his webmaster: Would you please ask your advertisers to not display pictures of toe nail fungus. That's really gross...and I have to look at while I'm typing this message. Yech!!!
Aliceinwonderland ~ So sorry! Of course you are right. I forgot I was talking to an egocentric sociopath. Thanks so much for reminding me. What a waste of time. That's 5 minutes I'll never get back.
But Marc, you don't understand. Her needs are being met. That's all that really matters. Right? Long as "Ou's" happy, we'd better back off and quit meddling with that wonderful healthcare system of ours. If tens of thousands of other Americans are dying each year, them's the breaks. If those people can't get access to healthcare, that's their problem. In America, we're on our own! Sink or swim! It's the American way! Keeps this country GREAT. Survival of the fittest! - AIW
Thumbs up, Marc! Way to go.
Yeah, "hater" has that dumb-ass confederate ring to it, doesn't it! We'll just keep chewing 'em up and spittin' 'em out. - AIW
Ou812 ~ There are two big differences between the Airlines and Health Care. First Health Care is a vital human need, not an optional convenience. Therefore, like our water supply, it is and should always remain a part of the commons for optimal efficiency.
Secondly, unless you've been asleep for the last few decades, we have already tried the commercial corporate model for Health Care and it failed miserably to meet the common need. That is exactly why the people are demanding change.
Aliceinwonderland ~ You sure are right about that. I might also add that I doubt our new friend from reich wing land has any student loan debts as well. In fact, I'd bet that none of these Tea-brained fascist lackeys owe a dime in student loan debts. If they have any education debts at all, and can't seem to be able to write one complete sentence without a grammatical error, they should refuse to pay back that loan. Who knows, maybe it's their lifestyle that keeps them so illiterate. "Who needs an education when that just turns people into lefty socialists anyway?"
I bet this guy lives in his mom's mobile home somewhere in the south and collects welfare. His name implies he's a young racist and proud of it. He has no debt because even the sleaziest bank wouldn't think twice about it. Welcome to Thom's blog hater22.
Yes Dave and Palindromedary - don't fly - for all of the reasons you have stated. I stopped completely 8 years ago after a grueling cross country flight in a plane where the air REcirculation system was malfunctioning (you don't get fresh air on flights because that adds to fuel costs to keep the passenger areas warm - they just blow the same germ laden, filthy air at you). All the passengers were choking, screaming for water and air. I had to take off my sock, wet it and hold it over my eyes, nose and mouth. I was horribly sick for about 3 weeks after with some sort of flu like thing. I will NEVER endure that again.
Tom - set a good example and stop jetsetting all over the place. While it's great to see you live, we hear you loud and clear through radio and internet. Thanks for this blog that let's us share our ideas.
you nailed it Kend...or try it with Health Care too:))
DAnneMarc: :-)
"Hater", you are ignoring one major factor: for-profit healthcare. If you want to stay out of debt in America, don't get sick. That's how lots of people get sucked into our uniquely American debt trap! Last I checked, illness was not a "lifestyle". If this ever should happen to you, you'll change your tune in a hurry. - AIW
If the Americans are suffering from financial trouble, loans and bankruptcies then I should say they are responsible for this. their lifestyle is responsible for this.