Too many secrets

This thing about Facebook, etc., is vexing me. I think the premise behind employers and The Bar wanting to see even “private” social networking pages is that there is a prevailing sentiment that these pages are created for publication, not unlike a résumé, which is obviously non-controversially required. But if you happen to have a Facebook, etc., page with a tightly limited distribution, then an employer asking for your password is a bit like demanding that you bring your family photo album to the interview—something that would be clearly inappropriate. Not to mention that your social networking page may include protected information like your religious, political, whatever affiliations that are all taboo job interview topics. But since I don’t see anything redeeming or useful about Facebook, etc., to me the whole problem is trivial—like if the government wanted to outlaw Dungeons ’n’ Dragons or skateboards. No big loss.

But I’m now thinking that this same principle might somewhat impact the greatest application ever, Dropbox. Dropbox is miraculous. It creates a folder or directory called “Dropbox” on each of your computers—whether it is a Mac or a non-Mac. That folder is magically kept in sync across all of your computers. So, if you edit a file on one computer, it is updated on all of them. Plus, you can make sub-folders to share with other Dropbox users, which are likewise kept in sync, so that you can collaborate on projects. My colleague Sam at DU and I make extensive use of it for the crim pro textbook that West is expecting us to finish by March. (The world does too need another crim pro textbook.) In short, it eliminates any need to email files from your office to your house, etc., or to your research assistants, co-authors, etc.

Dropbox, however, also makes a copy of your files on Dropbox’s servers. The upside to that is that you can get them anywhere, even from your iPhone. The downside is that the Supreme Court would consider those files “not private” like your bank records. Plus, I suspect you would lose any sort of attorney-client-privilege/work-product claim about them. But, I thought, wouldn’t the same be true of files you email, because they wind up on a bunch of servers out there in the ethos or wherever email travels?

It’s all very complicated. But I’m going to get on this, right after the gym today. I get paid to think about this kind of stuff.