Great points — the way I see it is that anything shared online is open to the possibility of being made public. I have a rule that I don’t write anything I wouldn’t be fine with having plastered on the front page of the New York Times. It’s how I am with my business and life.

Personal conversations, those I wouldn’t want shared, are done in-person or by phone. I think that in an age where we are moving to such an open form of living, it’s getting harder and harder to protect that privacy. While I think there are places it should exist, Twitter, Facebook and other social media just don’t see the answer for private convos.

Mary!!

I agree with you — I think the story is baloney too but I don’t think it would be that odd if the government were reading our public tweets. They are public and therefore readable by all. Unless of course you’ve made your tweets protected which to me is pointless – defeats the whole purpose of social networking!

Love your passion though and thank you for sharing!! Love the links and such to other resources.

Great convo.

E.

The USA has (and I’m sure something similar in Canada), the 4th Amendment – which explicitly protects us from unreasonable (warrantless) search & seizure [ http://bit.ly/LNZj1 ]. There should be no turning over of anything to any government without a court order/warrant… EVER (even if the stuff involved is basically public). After 9/11 there was a problem with wireless companies turning over phone records… then there was the unchecked wiretapping – the extent of which we still don’t know – and it is likely that it it still going on, as it was never thouroughly investigated.

I think the Twitter story is total baloney, but if it were true – there would be a well-deserved blizzard of lawsuits headed their way.

Many people take this stuff for granted, but we have to be vigilant about enforcing these basic protections – it’s just not something we can afford to be sloppy about.

Thanks for letting me indulge my inner civil liberties lawyer… LOL! ;-D

But privacy is a matter of agreement between all the parties involved. Sometimes it’s not necessarily about the content of a specific conversation as it is about the principle of privacy and where the line should be drawn with respect to the law.

What about the question of whether the government has a right to listen to your phone conversations without a warrant? Do you see it as different from Twitter DMs or the same?