Does Gmail breach wiretap laws?

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Guess who Stewart Baker is?

Stewart A. Baker was the National Security Agency's top lawyer from 1992-1994, where he promoted the key escrow system for the Clipper chip. EPIC, on the other hand, was a key opponent of the Clipper chip. It's curious that Declan McCullagh quotes Baker as his preferred expert on privacy issues, and notes that Baker said that "EPIC's analysis was flawed" on the issue of machine scanning of email. (What does McCullagh feel about Baker's advocacy of key escrow? After all, it's even smaller than a machine -- it's a tiny, little chip! How harmless!)

The point that McCullagh misses in all of his pieces on Gmail, is that those without Gmail accounts who end up sending mail to someone at gmail.com haven't consented to anything. Nothing in the Gmail privacy policy applies to those without accounts, and Google has yet to state that they won't be saving the incoming email addresses, and associating them in their database along with the keywords they'll be extracting from those incoming emails.

It's time for CNET News.com to take McCullagh off of the "Gmail is wonderful" beat. He's not very competent at hiding his pro-Google colors.

Posted by: Everyman_z   Posted on: 05/04/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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