I do find it interesting how there seems to be more protections around phone calls than anything else. As-in your employer can not just randomly listen to all your phone calls but can just record your screen all day?
Unrelated, I really wish this quote "The Court relied principally on the fact that the employee was an at-will employee and the employer had no legal interest in his future employment plans. " made its way into more lawsuits.
If we go back through history phones were first popular amongst the rich, powerful, and well connected. And politicians. None of whom wanted to be recorded. Even my dad explained to me how they didn't have a home phone line growing up. So as a result, we see lots of legal protections around phone calls.
The story of the computer, the internet, and by extension all work on the computer is the opposite. It's seen as an element of the common people or the nouveau rich. The people least likely to be using a computer are the rich, powerful and well connected. Thus, no legal protections exist.
Right, I think it's just a case of following the technologies throughout the ages in alignment with the political/cultural climate.
Computers are "newcomers", and by that point there was big political push for mass surveillance and anti-privacy propaganda was picking up. People have gotten less privacy conscious as time goes on so our laws regarding technology reflect that.
Also the nature of the tech matters, I think. Post is fairly simple to ensure privacy with, same with phone. You have to go out of your way to open things up or record them. Phones calls, by their nature, exist on the wire while they're happening.
But computers store things and that's a huge part of their usefulness. If you're already saving stuff to disk, which you probably are, there's no friction really with using that for nefarious uses. For example, request logging in a corporate environment. Although this doesn't explain things like recording screens.
You can basically extend your argument and replace computers with social media. It turns out all modern social media is done on a computer today, but even if it wasn't your argument still holds.
There’s a further wrinkle: Neither of the major parties at the time pushed the lie that government can do no good for society, and lobbyists weren’t the force they are today, so there was much more tendency for legislators to effectively legislate. It’s not that there wasn’t corruption, of course, but legislators didn’t quite so often go against exactly what their constituents wanted when acting corruptly.
>Neither of the major parties at the time pushed the lie that government can do no good for society
As opposed to now when bipartisan support for industrial policy and tariffs, or that we need to crack down on big tech? The decade before there was bipartisan support for the war on terror.
So when the government does nothing, it's "the major parties at the time pushed the lie that government can do no good for society" but when it does something it's "That's what bribes will get you"?
You forgot about the Federal Communications Act (1934).
And that was just federal. The Tenth Amendment meant wiretapping laws were on the books in states from the mid-1800s, securing the natural privacy of use of the telegraph as a protected medium of communication almost immediately following its inception.
That really needs to be combined with strong protections for the employees to be effective. If you can be fired at the drop of a hat for no reason, many other protections become very moot.
Historically you have had at least some expectation of privacy. Because cameras didn't exist or weren't economical. You weren't being watched 24/7. So that type of thing can work and be effective for a business.
The extreme granularity of visibility and control employers have is a very new phenomenon. No doubt they benefit from it, but whether it's mutually beneficial is up for debate.
Not a good idea. Employees and employers should both be free to end the relationship at any time as long as it’s not for discrimination of a protected class. Otherwise you end up with a rigid system where there’s even more loss aversion involved in hiring than there already is.
Often when discussing civil liberties, and protections thereof, the argument is "it's a choice you don't have to work for them and they're not the government they're a private entity so they can do whatever they want".
It strikes me how absurd that argument is. It almost deliberately ignores that all citizens are private entities and would do whatever they want were it not for laws restricting the ability of one person to abridge the happiness of another.
So how in the world have we become a society that's okay with TLS inspection "because security and compliance" but not okay with recorded phone calls? It's a crock of crap. Traditionally, the social value of whatever enterprise wants to engage in that type of spying would need to out-weight the fundamental right to privacy of all its employees. And you'd of course need to demonstrate that e.g. TLS inspection is actually required to sustain that immense value.
Laws exist to make unethical creepy things also illegal things. You don't get a pass on being subject to limits on your ability delete the privacy of other citizens just because you're not the government. At least not in my book.
And it's not really how things work. Your employer can't make hiring decisions based on protected classes or political alignment. So why should they be allowed to subject you to undue invasion of privacy? Is Civil Rights Act the only relevant legal framework these days?
>So how in the world have we become a society that's okay with TLS inspection "because security and compliance" but not okay with recorded phone calls?
What are you talking about? Call center workers are recorded all the time. People working in finance must conduct work conversations on a monitored medium, lest they get smacked by the SEC.
I well understand the security apologist’s approach to corporate device management and network security etc.
I lead citing your response as being something I don’t understand at a social-political level. From where does a company derive its power and authority to TLS inspect aka spy on its employees when it is by and large illegal to wiretap employees outside of specific allowed circumstances? Why is this legal and why do we broadly accept it?
>I lead citing your response as being something I don’t understand at a social-political level. From where does a company derive its power and authority to TLS inspect aka spy on its employees when it is by and large illegal to wiretap employees outside of specific allowed circumstances? Why is this legal and why do we broadly accept it?
They're both legal with proper notices. It's illegal to wiretap phones, but if you slap a "this conversation is being recorded for quality control purposes" it's suddenly legal. The same exists for TLS inspection. It requires the company's root certificate to be installed, which typically is only done on corporate machines. Such machines usually have a login banner along the lines of "this machine is for work purposes only and all usage is monitored".
Never connect a personal device to an employer's network, whether it be wifi or VPN.
Never log into personal accounts on an employer's devices (work phone, computer, etc) or networks.
Avoid using a company vehicle for personal needs.
Never say anything you wouldn't say in a higher up's or coworker's presence over slack, email, any communication platform used by coworkers and/or owned/authorized by an employer.
This kind of monitoring happens, all your shit will be pryed on (personal accounts or otherwise), it's very common (in the US), it will be used against you, it is legal (in the US).
This is a warning not just from personal experience, but it's also been the experience of many others.
Germany is one of the only (maybe is the only?) countries that has made this kind of bullshit illegal.
> Don't worry. Once the True Leader is back in power, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be powerless again.
That’s the problem with Congress abdicating its duties and assigning rule making to administrative bodies and their respective courts instead of passing actual laws. Instead of being upset at whatever figurehead sits at the top you would do well to write your senators and representatives instead.
I do find it interesting how there seems to be more protections around phone calls than anything else. As-in your employer can not just randomly listen to all your phone calls but can just record your screen all day?
https://corporate.findlaw.com/law-library/can-an-employer-mo...
Unrelated, I really wish this quote "The Court relied principally on the fact that the employee was an at-will employee and the employer had no legal interest in his future employment plans. " made its way into more lawsuits.
If we go back through history phones were first popular amongst the rich, powerful, and well connected. And politicians. None of whom wanted to be recorded. Even my dad explained to me how they didn't have a home phone line growing up. So as a result, we see lots of legal protections around phone calls.
The story of the computer, the internet, and by extension all work on the computer is the opposite. It's seen as an element of the common people or the nouveau rich. The people least likely to be using a computer are the rich, powerful and well connected. Thus, no legal protections exist.
Before phones, there was mail. Laws around the handling of mail are also extremely strict.
Right, I think it's just a case of following the technologies throughout the ages in alignment with the political/cultural climate.
Computers are "newcomers", and by that point there was big political push for mass surveillance and anti-privacy propaganda was picking up. People have gotten less privacy conscious as time goes on so our laws regarding technology reflect that.
Also the nature of the tech matters, I think. Post is fairly simple to ensure privacy with, same with phone. You have to go out of your way to open things up or record them. Phones calls, by their nature, exist on the wire while they're happening.
But computers store things and that's a huge part of their usefulness. If you're already saving stuff to disk, which you probably are, there's no friction really with using that for nefarious uses. For example, request logging in a corporate environment. Although this doesn't explain things like recording screens.
You can basically extend your argument and replace computers with social media. It turns out all modern social media is done on a computer today, but even if it wasn't your argument still holds.
There’s a further wrinkle: Neither of the major parties at the time pushed the lie that government can do no good for society, and lobbyists weren’t the force they are today, so there was much more tendency for legislators to effectively legislate. It’s not that there wasn’t corruption, of course, but legislators didn’t quite so often go against exactly what their constituents wanted when acting corruptly.
>Neither of the major parties at the time pushed the lie that government can do no good for society
As opposed to now when bipartisan support for industrial policy and tariffs, or that we need to crack down on big tech? The decade before there was bipartisan support for the war on terror.
> As opposed to now when bipartisan support for industrial policy
That's what bribes will get you
> The decade before there was bipartisan support for the war on terror.
Of course generally both parties supported giving themselves more power. There were a few holdouts with integrity though.
>That's what bribes will get you
So when the government does nothing, it's "the major parties at the time pushed the lie that government can do no good for society" but when it does something it's "That's what bribes will get you"?
The telephone was invented in 1876.
The FBI was created in 1908.
The CIA was created in 1947.
The Internet was invented in 1983.
.
The government was a heck of a lot less overpowered and nosy back when phones were new than when the Internet was new.
Except wiretapping was made illegal in like 1968, so the gov was powerful and nosy then.
I'm guessing its not "weak government" but actually "good government"
You forgot about the Federal Communications Act (1934).
And that was just federal. The Tenth Amendment meant wiretapping laws were on the books in states from the mid-1800s, securing the natural privacy of use of the telegraph as a protected medium of communication almost immediately following its inception.
Some countries have laws that require companies to disclose what they monitor about their employees. That seems fair.
That really needs to be combined with strong protections for the employees to be effective. If you can be fired at the drop of a hat for no reason, many other protections become very moot.
How would this work? If you're on company time it's very hard to argue you have an expectation of privacy, especially on company devices.
Historically you have had at least some expectation of privacy. Because cameras didn't exist or weren't economical. You weren't being watched 24/7. So that type of thing can work and be effective for a business.
The extreme granularity of visibility and control employers have is a very new phenomenon. No doubt they benefit from it, but whether it's mutually beneficial is up for debate.
Germany does it pretty well.
Not a good idea. Employees and employers should both be free to end the relationship at any time as long as it’s not for discrimination of a protected class. Otherwise you end up with a rigid system where there’s even more loss aversion involved in hiring than there already is.
wsj just says "Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker"
So here's a direct link:
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-takes...
https://archive.is/q6EK0
Often when discussing civil liberties, and protections thereof, the argument is "it's a choice you don't have to work for them and they're not the government they're a private entity so they can do whatever they want".
It strikes me how absurd that argument is. It almost deliberately ignores that all citizens are private entities and would do whatever they want were it not for laws restricting the ability of one person to abridge the happiness of another.
So how in the world have we become a society that's okay with TLS inspection "because security and compliance" but not okay with recorded phone calls? It's a crock of crap. Traditionally, the social value of whatever enterprise wants to engage in that type of spying would need to out-weight the fundamental right to privacy of all its employees. And you'd of course need to demonstrate that e.g. TLS inspection is actually required to sustain that immense value.
Laws exist to make unethical creepy things also illegal things. You don't get a pass on being subject to limits on your ability delete the privacy of other citizens just because you're not the government. At least not in my book.
And it's not really how things work. Your employer can't make hiring decisions based on protected classes or political alignment. So why should they be allowed to subject you to undue invasion of privacy? Is Civil Rights Act the only relevant legal framework these days?
>So how in the world have we become a society that's okay with TLS inspection "because security and compliance" but not okay with recorded phone calls?
What are you talking about? Call center workers are recorded all the time. People working in finance must conduct work conversations on a monitored medium, lest they get smacked by the SEC.
https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/knowledge/publication...
If you don't want the company to monitor your instagram browsing, do it from your phone, not your work machine.
I well understand the security apologist’s approach to corporate device management and network security etc.
I lead citing your response as being something I don’t understand at a social-political level. From where does a company derive its power and authority to TLS inspect aka spy on its employees when it is by and large illegal to wiretap employees outside of specific allowed circumstances? Why is this legal and why do we broadly accept it?
Checkout https://honest.security/
>I lead citing your response as being something I don’t understand at a social-political level. From where does a company derive its power and authority to TLS inspect aka spy on its employees when it is by and large illegal to wiretap employees outside of specific allowed circumstances? Why is this legal and why do we broadly accept it?
They're both legal with proper notices. It's illegal to wiretap phones, but if you slap a "this conversation is being recorded for quality control purposes" it's suddenly legal. The same exists for TLS inspection. It requires the company's root certificate to be installed, which typically is only done on corporate machines. Such machines usually have a login banner along the lines of "this machine is for work purposes only and all usage is monitored".
Wiretapping is largely illegal except for some specific clauses for specific types of work.
But generally, your employer is not allowed to arbitrarily record your phone calls.
Never connect a personal device to an employer's network, whether it be wifi or VPN.
Never log into personal accounts on an employer's devices (work phone, computer, etc) or networks.
Avoid using a company vehicle for personal needs.
Never say anything you wouldn't say in a higher up's or coworker's presence over slack, email, any communication platform used by coworkers and/or owned/authorized by an employer.
This kind of monitoring happens, all your shit will be pryed on (personal accounts or otherwise), it's very common (in the US), it will be used against you, it is legal (in the US).
This is a warning not just from personal experience, but it's also been the experience of many others.
Germany is one of the only (maybe is the only?) countries that has made this kind of bullshit illegal.
When the company you work offers you a company phone they built, don’t.
The alternative in many cases would be to install MDM software on one's personal device, which seems like the worse option to me.
Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41936906
A non-paywalled source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/consumer-watchdog-cautions-comp...
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> Don't worry. Once the True Leader is back in power, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be powerless again.
That’s the problem with Congress abdicating its duties and assigning rule making to administrative bodies and their respective courts instead of passing actual laws. Instead of being upset at whatever figurehead sits at the top you would do well to write your senators and representatives instead.
No longer will our poor politicians have to live in fear of their personally branded "Universities" going bankrupt for cheating student-consumers.