LAW: Privacy in Electronic Recordkeeping

From: Ken Meyering (kenmeyering@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Jan 20 2001 - 20:52:03 MST

Dear Extropians:

I have some questions with regards to where conventional law may have not have caught up with current technology.

I'm interested in digitizing all of written correspondence I receive, and placing those files on my home computer (which is internet connected and accessible with password).

When someone sends me a letter and I digitize it and put it on my computer, is this legal (by current law)?

For example, signatures that occur on letters would be open to analysis and scrutiny by those within the Virtual Private Network of users who may access my computer. Can I share my mail like this?

For example, here are a few letters I've digitized:

http://define.com/ing/Reply-from-Federal-Way_nice-signature_perhaps-you-havent-seen-the-molecular-tape-of-the-incident_Id-swear-that-T-looks-like-a-STAR.jpg

http://define.com/ing/STRANGE-DAYS_Ask-DICK_Plausible-Deniability_Stealth-Kudos_Take-out-a-few-SATELLITES-to-give-THE-KID-some-CREDENCE.jpg

http://define.com/ing/1888DEFINE1/111_no-harm-DONE/volt-microsoft-letter.pdf

This goes along with the question of how large can a PRIVATE organization be before it's considered PUBLIC? For example, what if I was a private security company monitoring the surveillance video camera's at WAL-MART, TARGET, SEARS, SAFEWAY, BARNES & NOBLE and BORDERS books. What if my method of employing security guards to watch the cameras was to farm out the labor to the net using electronic commerce? For example, the cameras video feeds are multicasted on a VPN to employees working from home offices?

Suddenly, half the AT&T @HOME customers in a city are "part-time" security guards, watching the store cameras. Are the cameras still "private", or are they considered public?

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