Whose Property?

John Locke introduced the arguments for individual property rights at the end of the 17th century. Succinctly if you pay for it you own it. Now let us examine telephone service. I have spent a few years there, last one at Verizon/NYNEX as SVP and COO and billing was under me amongst other things. We charged the customer for the service, all the service, and that included the bill. In a Lockean sense therefore the customer "owned" the bill. We protected the data since we were at best a common carrier and part of that duty under common carriage law was protection of the entire package.

I entrust a common carrier with my package, the entire package. Under common carrier law they are responsible for the package and its integrity but if lost their liability is limited to the cost of transport not the value of the package. The law gives them this break so we can entrust them with the ability to conduct commerce. We trust a common carrier and their reward to honoring the trust is elimination of total liability. If they break that trust then what?

Now does the same apply to the Post Office? Not really since we know the post office is a Government entity and thus we have no expectation of privacy. In addition the address is in plain sight, and it cannot be protected. However telephone call records are secure, encrypted, protected, and thus an expectation of privacy is apparent.

Now with the NY Judge and the NSA. The NY Times reports: 

Judge Pauley said that protections under the Fourth Amendment do not apply to records held by third parties, like phone companies. “This blunt tool only works because it collects everything,” Judge Pauley said in the ruling.“While robust discussions are underway across the nation, in Congress and at the White House, the question for this court is whether the government’s bulk telephony metadata program is lawful. This court finds it is,” he added.A spokesman for the Justice Department said, “We are pleased the court found the N.S.A.'s bulk telephony metadata collection program to be lawful.” He declined to comment further. 

Now whose property is is. Did the Telco pay for it out of their profits? No way! The consumer paid for the collection and processing and never waived their rights. At best the Telco has a duty to protect the customer. This is a classic case of Common Carriage protection. It dates back to Elizabeth I around 1602.  Somehow all the wonderful protections we had obtained in the past centuries are slipping away, perhaps because of a poor pleading, perhaps because of a nefarious government.

Now I had written several papers a while back worth recounting:

Privacy In this paper I discuss privacy rights in an Internet world.

Internet Hubbing In this paper I discuss using a hub in Europe to protect privacy on Internet traffic. This was 2002! It was clear then that Echelon was snooping all wireless traffic.

Network Neutrality Internet Neutrality also means Internet privacy. In this paper I noticed the loss of ownership under common carriage.

I believe that there is a fundamental right of ownership that the Telcos are denying and that the Government is destroying. NSA for many years spied on foreign traffic. As a military entity one wonders what rights they have to function in the country. Posse Comitatus notwithstanding.