How do you keep your email private? Sure, it’s marked private and you’re supposed to be the only one who can read it, but how do you know that someone at your ISP isn’t reading it? Or that someone at the ISP you’re sending it to isn’t reading it on the other end? Unless you and the person you’re exchanging email with are both encrypting your messages, anyone at the ISP is free to read them. Of course any reputable ISP will have a policy forbidding employees from doing this, but is that a guarantee? Abuses happen all the time.

Who’s to say that your ISP doesn’t log everything you do?

I agree that just because something has turned bad doesnt mean it has to stay that way, its just that you cant expect the same level of privacy on the Internet as in the real world without taking extreme measures.

Statements like that make no more sense than the first one.
If you ACCEPT the idea that “this is the way it is”, you’re not seeing what’s going on.

The reason we’re having to defend our right to privacy now is because too many people didn’t know any better than to think like that, as things like data mining were introduced. People let companies get away with far too much spying and information selling, giving the Great Marketing Machine more incentive to keep cranking up the volume on your personal stuff.

Just because something is starting to run amok, doesn’t mean it should, or that there’s nothing anyone can do about it!

For instance read my post about how they use their Doodle competitions to brand kids at an early age while offering ridiculously small prizes that get them a lot of free press.

http://www.gubatron.com/blog/2009/03/18/how-to-get-free-press-for-your-billion-dollar-corp-using-and-branding-kids-all-over-the-country/

Only those that ACCEPT this clueless idea expect no privacy.
All others who know better, know very well when and where their privacy is being violated.
Of those, the ones who care about it will defend their rights.

Why are there people that are so quick to believe they have no expectation of privacy?…
Because they’re being CONDITIONED by all the CORPORATE INTRUSION to believe it’s somehow “normal” for everyone on the planet to be watching your surfing habits and seeing your personal info.

People need to remember that the Internet is a direct product of cooperation between PRIVATE COMPUTERS that started peering. When “providers” entered the picture, they were no originally intended to “control” the data – only transfer it, unbeknownst of its contents. The rest is just a bastardization, brought in by COMMERCIAL INTERESTS that started with spam, and working its way to viruses and malware. Everytime we thought we had “rules”, corporate missions came in and openly broke them in their quest to begin “possessing” the Internet.

Once you pronounce “no expectation” of privacy (or anonymity!), you help bring the Internet one step closer to some form of collective corporate ownership.

Why?