I trust Google with my data more than I trust the Government
Shane Richmond writes on the Daily Telegraph’s Technology blog:
Suppose the Government announced plans to follow every Briton and record their conversations. Imagine a society in which you had to submit lists of your friends to the state. What if photo labs sent the police a copy of every photograph you bring in for developing? Imagine all of this being done just in case it became relevant to an as yet uncommitted crime. It sounds farcical – it is farcical – yet yet this is what the Government’s plans to snoop on our internet activity amount to.
It would be hugely impractical to follow our every move in the offline world but it can be done relatively simply online. The Government seems to have decided that because these things can be done then they should be. So we can soon expect our phone calls, emails, text messages and now Facebook friends lists to be stored should the Government ever decide they need to check up on us.
It’s a dangerous step to take because, as Isabella Sankey of Liberty says in our story today, it would make Britons “permanent suspects”.
March 26th, 2009 at 16:35
Is this not a trivial proposition? Surely “I trust X with my data more than I trust the government” is true for all values of X? And no, Darth Vader and Attila the Hun are valid values: they are both government representatives (just slightly different types of government).