Our rulers here in the U.S. are once again chipping away at our privacy, with e-book implications.
This time the issue is the privacy of YouTube accesses, and the snoops are copyright lawyers representing Viacom. Next time? Law-enforcement agents demanding e-book records? We’ve already seen Washington’s attempt to breach the privacy of Internet Archive users.
Lawless interpretation of law?
When a federal court for the Southern District of New York ruled in favor of Viacom, it apparently ignored the Video Privacy Protection Act, which mentions not just video tapes but also "similar audio visual materials.”
I think it would be fun to know what YouTubes the gang at the White House is watching. Bondage flicks? Waterboarding torture tips? Ironically, the VPPA was passed after a video store clerk leaked the video rental records of Robert Bork, a Supreme Court nominee. Luckily the titles revealed were tame—for example, A Day at the Races, Ruthless People and The Man Who Knew Too Much. But who knows about other video fans? Might some even get in trouble in the future for watching not-so-G-rated flicks from Viacom?
Related: E-book privacy at the borders? Not now—but EFF’s fighting.
(Via Interesting People.)
