I’m curious about what exactly at&t is planning on doing with my data packets. If they are going to have a person physically looking at the information packets, that’s one thing. If they are going to have a bot running algorithms on the packets to determine if you are participating in illegal activity, that’s another (slightly less alarming) thing altogether. G-mail already sort of does this with text-ads (reads your e-mails).

Do I want a bot deciding if what I’m sending is legal or not? Not really. I think that data-packets should be treated the same way an envelope that I seal and mail is treated, because that’s the exact same thing, it’s the modern equivalent of a letter/package.

I could understand if at&t were offering a free internet service, and needed to scan all my data packets looking for keywords so that they could target advertisements at me (I wouldn’t use this service, but if I did, it’d be my choice to do so, and thus allow them to see my packets).

I could also understand if at&t were inspecting headers to check them against a black-list of viruses to make my browsing experience more secure. But that wouldn’t require them to review the whole packet, just the headers. I’m not sure, but I think my firewall does this already (although I bought that and it’s mine, so that’s just me scanning my own e-mails).

G-mail already reads all of my message to determine if they are spam or not (a bot does this).

Here’s the thing, I use Comcast, so this doesn’t effect my home computer. It does effect my iPhone though since that’s through at&t. I know that the eschelon system already listens to my phone calls, but unless I get flagged no person ever hears them. And even if I got flagged (however that happens), I sincerely doubt anyone would ever hear the conversation that got me flagged. It would probably only come up if I dropped a nuke on cuba (or something like that) and even then John Q Public would never hear it, just some dweebs in the CIA who would use it to ship me off to Guantanimo before I was hanged or something, which (let’s face it) is exactly what should happen. Perhaps I am just naive though. Perhaps big-brother really is sitting there listening to all of my phone calls…

Anyways, another very important point should now be made: AT&T is not the government, and they should be allowed to do anything they want with their computer equipment that I pay them to let me use. If they don’t have a premium plan that allows you to pay them not to look at your packets, and you are afraid to have them look at your packets, get the premium plan. If they don’t, go with Comcast or Road-Runner (don’t even get me started of the government enforced monopoly debacle that is Cable though) or satellite.

The only reasons I can think of for AT&T sniffing your data:

1. To throttle back large downloads to make common web browsing blazing fast.

2. Because the government (and RIAA, etc) is forcing/pressuring them to to catch criminals.

3. So that they can give preferential treatment to customers who pay a premium.

I’m sure there are other reasons, but these are the three off the top of my head. Number 1 & 3 are A-OK with me. I’ll choose someone else who isn’t doing that over AT&T every day of the week, but that doesn’t mean that I think that the government should even blink at AT&T making decisions about how data is passed along their equipment.

Reason number 2 scares me. The reason it scares me is because what if some day the government decided that Christianity was illegal? Or perhaps they decide that you can go to jail for questioning the government? Or what if they decide that “hacker” tools (like… say… Linux?) are illegal? Or what if they decide that dissing rap music (or something) qualifies as “hate speech” and can get you a fine/prison term? Going along this line of thinking, you can come up with all sorts of reasons why number 2 is a horrible horrible thing. Sure the government is “ok” right now, but in the future, if calling abortion murder, or saying that homosexuality is a sin, is qualified as hate speech and can earn you a prison term, what then? Welcome to 1984.

So it’s important to note the reasons behind what AT&T is doing. If they are doing it because of any sort of government involvement, then it’s the government that needs brought down, not AT&T. If they are doing it over their own stupidity, then I don’t give two shakes of a rat’s tail, because I believe in corporate freedom, and the freedom of a corporation to do something that I consider so utterly stupid that it brings that corporation to ruin, because who knows, it might just work. I would have thought that Kodak dumping film and going all digital was stupid, and it seems to be working fine. If you don’t like them “invading” your privacy, don’t use their system.

We are also forgetting the fact that telephones used to be linked so that you could pick one up and hear every word every neighbor on your block was saying, and that telephone operators used to listen in on the entire conversation and do all of the dialing for you. We are just to young to have that collective memory. We as a society today have the highest expectation of privacy in the history of the earth. The only reason you should be alarmed at a privacy invasion is if it is by an entity that has the ability to lock you up, or even murder you. AT&T can do neither. The government could do both without breaking a sweat. That’s why I’m a conservative (because we are for shrinking the government and making it extremely hard to do either. Thus limiting the government’s privacy from you, and maximizing your privacy from them. Get the government out of your life).