There are few things more absurd to behold than a politician on the warpath over a technology issue. There are a few exceptions - the few who blog, or acknowledge openly that netizens aren't all perverts. But, still, when it comes to the fast flowing waters of tech debate, most politicians still flounder.
Proving the point this week is California senator Liz Figueroa, who is banging her drum about Google's plans for an email service.
In case you missed the news, Google is launching Gmail, the big feature of which is a gigabyte of storage, and a search facility. Gmail is likely to offer a substantial improvement on existing webmail services. And the payback for Google comes from advertising, for it plans to scan your email and serve targeted ads alongside your correspondence - exactly as it does with its search pages today.
It's here that the balloons go up. Figueroa says such ads will - brace yourself - be "like having a massive billboard in the middle of your home." This might sound a lot like commercial TV, but Figueroa is "drafting legislation" (read, "issuing a press release") to Stop It All.
Meanwhile an open letter from privacy campaigners warns Gmail will "raise significant and troubling questions". Scanning "violates the implicit trust of an email service provider ... Google needs to realise that many different companies and even governments can and likely will walk through the email scanning door once it is opened."
Yet all the objections, including Senator Figueroa's, are based on two dangerous fallacies. First is the quaint notion that Google's technology can be kept out of hands of governments, and that its use would set a precedent companies and governments would follow.
In reality, governments already scan communications, including email. Post 9/11, they don't need Google as an excuse. Privacy campaigners should know this - after all, they've been fighting the legislation that makes it possible. Plus, anti-virus software already scans millions of emails daily.
The second fallacy is that, whether or not MI5 wants a peek, our emails are secure. The fact is, anyone sending sensitive material via bog-standard email is taking a risk. Email is sent in the clear over the net, and is stored for long periods - even when users think they have deleted it.
Companies do this to comply with law, protect themselves or just through sloppiness. Worse, corporate privacy abuse, whether sanctioned by management or not, is rife. Armed with the right access privileges, anyone can browse mail archives.
The only way to secure mail is to encrypt it - something few of us do because it's a hassle. And if we can't be bothered to protect what we send, are we really that concerned? Probably not.
Why? Maybe it's because we see email as a semi-public space, not a secret one. We know emails might be intercepted by bosses. We know explicit or embarassing messages might be forwarded to millions by the recipient - not a snooper. We moderate what we say. In other words, we're realising the limits of the medium - limits the privacy lobby would do well to discover themselves.
