Google and Facebook: Protect Our Privacy!
Imagine the cops rifling through your mail, your calendar, your receipts. All your private information, available for them to look through. To do this offline, they'd have to get a warrant from a judge and break into your house. But every day the cops -- and anyone else with a good lawyer -- get access to your online email and calendar just by asking.
Major online service providers like Gmail and Facebook just hand over your personal data to the police when they get a legal request -- usually without even telling you they've done so! And since you never know about the request, you never get a day in court to challenge it. Your privacy is gone before you even know it.
Twitter has just taken a bold stand to protect its users' privacy. When the US Government demanded they turn over information about people affiliated with WikiLeaks, they told the people affected and now they have the chance to challenge the request. But Facebook and Google are refusing to do the same! Sign our petition demanding they -- and other major Internet companies -- adopt sensible privacy protections and stop turning over your personal data to anyone who asks.
PETITION TO INTERNET COMPANIES: If you're going to store my private information, you need to promise to keep it private! Follow Twitter's example, and let me know before you hand over my data to the Feds.