You can hardly browse the internet without agreeing to some legally binding form you don't understand and probably will never read. Every time you sign up an online account or install a piece of software, you're confronted by inexplicable jargon.
There's probably nothing to worry about, right? But what if you signed up for a web site that said the following?
When logged on ... your computer is considered a Federal computer system and is property of the U.S. Government ... Users (authorized or unauthorized) have no explicit or implicit expectation of privacy.
Any or all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected and disclosed ... to authorized CARS, DoT, and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign
No, you're not logging into the CIA mainframe or the space shuttle. That warning was on cars.gov - the web site for 'Cash for Clunkers'. For some inexplicable reason, someone decided that when you log in your entire computer and all of its contents should become government property and to eliminate your privacy completely. The only way to be more invasive would be to crush the Constitution with an Abrams tank and attach a government camera to your head.
It was removed after Glenn Beck started a media frenzy, but there are still unanswered questions:
1. Why was it put up in the first place?
2. How do we know that this was an 'isolated' mistake, and what else might people have agreed to?
3. If the government can't handle the legal paperwork for a website, how are they supposed to run things like health care?
The rush to defend the inexcusable did turn up one legitimate point - the average consumer would probably never have seen the agreement, because it was only on the 'dealers' end of the website. But is that an excuse? It's like saying "Don't worry, we're doing it to someone else, not you." It's not entirely comforting: how do you know you won't be next?
Comments