Reading Habeas Data was the first time I ever thought about litigation regarding personal data. In addition, prior to this reading, I knew nothing about the security features of email, as well as the role of encryption in the email system. I was extremely fascinated to learn about Germany’s restriction on the type of data the government can collect following Nazism. One could say that Germany was ahead of the times when they created their first data privacy act in the 1970s, far before personal computing became prevalent. In addition, the fact that Germany continuously updated the law up until 2003 is a sign that they take the development of technology seriously (although, now that 2003 was 15 years ago, the law could use an update because technology and data collection has changed drastically since then). The contrast between German privacy laws regarding data and US laws is stark – even after all the court cases regarding personal data and search warrants were settled, the US still does not have a federal law restricting the type of data the government can collect on a person. This contrast between Germany and the US reminds me of another scenario with Twitter. On Twitter in the US, one can easily spread and have access to far-right conspiracy theories and the sort. In Germany, that type of propaganda is not allowed. This can be seen if a user logs onto the German version of Twitter as opposed to the US version of Twitter. It appears that the main difference between the US and Germany is that Germany is aware of its dark history – the age of Nazism – and is doing its best to prevent history from repeating itself. Some argue that the US does not have the same history of violence, or that the entirety of US history is violence, that the US government has no interest in halting the perpetuation of violent far-right rhetoric.

I was not surprised to read the Supreme Court came back 9-0 for both the Riley and the Wurie case. I think most people would be surprised that the Right leaning judges voted for the right to privacy, but most Republicans tend to prefer smaller governments and therefore limiting the powers of the government. When reading about these cases, I also did some reflecting on my relationship with my phone. People dump data about their entire day to day lives on their phones without giving it a second thought. Furthermore, most of us use applications that automatically communicate with the cloud (via Google or Amazon). At this point, it is perhaps naïve to assume the existence of any sort of privacy in the US. In addition, it is not even the data collection that is the most nefarious process of the internet – it is the personality profiling, the microtargeting, and the psychometrics developed to manipulate unassuming people into doing things for someone else’s agenda.

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