Should accessing con­tent via the Google Books ser­vice pro­vide the same pro­tec­tions as one would receive when relying on a book­store? The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the ACLU say, “Yes”:

The cen­tral ques­tion in the pri­vacy debate that EFF and our part­ners at the ACLU of Northern California and the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley have been having with Google about Google Book Search is whether this exciting new dig­ital library/bookstore is going to main­tain the strong pro­tec­tions for reader pri­vacy that tra­di­tional libraries and book­stores have fought for and largely won.

via Warrants Required: EFF and Google’s Big Disagreement about Google Book Search | Electronic Frontier Foundation.

I think I can safely say that I am in agree­ment with the ACLU and EFF on this one. Warrants, requiring judi­cial approval, are an impor­tant safe­guard, although not per­fect. They are rou­tine for most inves­ti­ga­tions of phys­ical loca­tions, and, I think, ought to be so for vir­tual ones as well.

Of course, this pre­vents large-scale “data mining” activ­i­ties by gov­ern­ments, who could con­ceiv­able flag sus­pi­cious activity for future inves­ti­ga­tion — but that, I think, is how it should be.

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