Birgitta Jónsdóttir: How the US Justice Department legally hacked my Twitter account

[marmar]

How the US Justice Department legally hacked my Twitter account
Few realise that foreign governments gain the right to our personal data when we sign up to social media. This must end

Birgitta Jónsdóttir
guardian.co.uk, Friday 11 November 2011



Birgitta Jónsdóttir's Twitter account: a US court has ruled that Twitter must comply with a Department of Justice demand to release private data held by the social media company, which it seeks as part of its investigation into WikiLeaks. Photograph: guardiannews.com

Before my Twitter case, in which the US Department of Justice has demanded that the social media site hands over personal information about my account which it deems necessary to its investigation of WikiLeaks, I didn't think much about what rights I would be signing off when accepting user agreement in my computer. The text is usually lengthy, in a legal language that most people don't understand. Very few people read the user agreements, and very few understand their legal implications if someone in the real world would try to use one against them.

Many of us who use the internet – be it to write emails, work or browse its growing landscape: mining for information, connecting with others or using it to organise ourselves in various groups of the like-minded – are not aware of that our behavior online is being monitored. Profiling has become a default with companies such as Google and Facebook. These companies have huge databases recording our every move within their environment, in order to groom advertising to our interests. For them, we are only consumers to push goods at, in order to sell ads through an increasingly sophisticated business model. For them, we are not regarded as citizens with civic rights. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/11/us-justice-department-legally-hacked-twitter

[xchrom]

1. I have mixed feelings about her - but this was wrong. Nt

[Lionessa]

2. Don't want it seen, don't put it on-line. That said,

Since probably even before the Patriot Act, we have been being surveilled, in all types of ways. And it seems exceptionally odd that a Brit (I'm assuming Brit because of writing for the Guardian) who has CCTV 24/7 and can be physically surveilled without her knowledge, would be so frustrated by a Twitter account details. She seems to have a false sense about how "free" her off-line life is.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Probably thought she was guilty of being in possession

of a suspicious name.