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January 18, 2007

Comments

mahathir_fan

does this mean that companies like Vodaphone would not allow the US government to tap phone lines? what if the US government has a court order to conduct eavesdropping, is vodaphone going to defiantly refuse to obey?

or if suspected al-qaeda members are using yahoo mail, yahoo would not release any info that would lead the US to capture these al-qaeda members?

Rebecca MacKinnon

MF, specifics of the "code of conduct" are still being hashed out. But I don't think it will result in these companies not complying with local law enforcement. The emphasis, I believe, will be in doing a better job in making more clear to users what info will be shared with the govt and when so that they can make more informed choices. Also there is the issue of what jurisdictions you choose to host your user data in - as "crime" is defined rather more broadly in some jurisdictions than others.

martin english

Rebecca, mahathir_fan,

1) Someone, somewhere, has to make a moral judgement about the user, their data, and their intent.

It would be foolish to assume that vodafone (or their lawyers) would have a blanket refusal to tap phones for branches of the US Government. A reasonable case would be for surveillance of a suspected murderer. However, to draw a (reasonable ?) comparison, would investigation of a Euthanasia Advocate be as clear cut ?

If the US government decided J Doe was a terror suspect, would ANY of these coporations ignore the subpoenas ? If not, what makes different from China, where the coproations handed data over about 'suspected traitors' (my quotes) ?

bograma

Any research for this article? It's VODAFONE,not Vodaphone!So, you're an expert,right?:)

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