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The Innocent Intended: Violating Your Email Address

Every single day someone somewhere is violating your email privacy.  The violators might not even intend on penetrating your cone of silence, but their carelessness can lead to no other end than virtually bleeding you out.  You might think your email address is secure, but if someone has access to your private information and then includes those personal markers in a misdirected email intended for you, but sent to someone else — any sense of security you have worked to protect is inherently broken.

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When the Chief of Police Violates Privacy

Tom Casady is currently the Chief of Police for Lincoln, Nebraska.  As a child of Lincoln, I enjoy reading his fantastic blog called, “The Chief’s Corner.”  I was recently alarmed when I read an article written by Tom that rehashed the offensive/silly/inappropriate email usernames people use to inquire about employment with the Lincoln Police Department.  I was shocked to see the email usernames of applicants revealed in public on Tom’s blog because that is in the least a violation of privacy for those making an inquiry, and perhaps, even a more serious ethical violation of a vested public city official.  I was unable to find the recent article that shocked me, but doing a search on Tom’s site led me to a dead link for this page written on December 2, 2008 where Tom Casady revealed live email usernames of the inquirers — figuring our the entire email address is not that hard and often doing a Google search on a unique username alone can reveal a lot.  I have blurred the email addresses contained in that article:

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Peeping by Business Card

We already know that there are cameras all around us. You are hardly ever private when you use social networking sites. You know about how your criminal past may easily come back to haunt you. But did you know that dropping a seemingly harmless slip of paper could also open a door to destroy your privacy?

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Your Privacy is Leaking

Social Networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, MySpace and Twitter all hope to create a feeling of loyal warmth and human companionship — but is something more nefarious lurking just out of sight beneath the surface intimacy?

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Your ID Card, Your Criminal Record

You are driving to the mall with your children and you find yourself going just a touch over the speed limit. It’s okay, you think to yourself, because you’re going with the flow of traffic. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a police squad car in your rear view mirror. No worries – they have every right to be on the road and there’s no reason to think you’re being followed. Only when you see the car start to flash its lights does the worry commence.

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Peeping Google

First we had NASA spying on Athens to help “fight the fire” and now we have Google being used to peep in on the tragic life of kidnapped-but-found-again Jaycee Lee Dugard — but all in the name of “newsgathering.”  Are we in any way offended that Google’s maps can be so easily used to dig into the private lives of others?

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Of Skanks and Agent Provocateurs

Two purely bizarre stories made news this week and in a strange and discomforting way — they’re both about the same, clinging, issue that razzle us every day:  Do we own our identity in public?  The first case concerns Hal Turner, a vile-spewing blogger from New Jersey, who claimed he was paid by the FBI to spread his ugly messages of hate. 

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