After the Snowden storm, I thought this article may give an interesting historical perspective on privacy.
Sacramento Daily Union, Vol 2, # 119 11 July 1876
THE PROTECTION OF THE TELEGRAPH.
Congress is making serious trouble for Itself and the country by its arbitrary and high handed proceedings regarding the telegraph. There is no justification whatever tor the manner in which old dispatches have been demanded, and telegraphic superintendents have been compelled to produce copies of private dispatches.
The vital principle of the telegraph is privacy, and if it does not possess this at least on equal terms with the mails, it will rapidly fall into disuse. Congress has no more right to demand the surrender of copies of private dispatches than it has to open letters passing through the mails, or to call upon accused persons and their friends to produce their private correspondence. It is not only Congress, however, that has lately infringed upon the inviolabilty of the telegraph. It came out recently that the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company had sold a great many old dispatches to a junk shop for waste paper, and a House Committee secured the entire heap. It is of course im possible to tell what secrets may not be concealed among those dispatches, and under the hands of a Democratic Committee aided by a regiment of sensational correspondents, it can hardly be hoped that any reputation would be spared, suspicious facts concerning which might be discovered.
The action ot President Eckert, of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, in permitting the old telegrams to go to the junk shop is inexcusable, and suggests the desirability of an inquiry as to what becomes of all old dispatches. The Western Union Company we believe preserve their copies two years, but how they are disposed of at the expiration of that period we do not know. It is clear, however, that the telegraph should be protected, and that the course of these Paul Pry Committees in demanding dispatches is altogether unwarrantable, and a dangerous invasion of private rights which must not pass unrebuked.
Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside, http://cdnc.ucr.edu
Sacramento Daily Union, Vol 2, # 119 11 July 1876
THE PROTECTION OF THE TELEGRAPH.
Congress is making serious trouble for Itself and the country by its arbitrary and high handed proceedings regarding the telegraph. There is no justification whatever tor the manner in which old dispatches have been demanded, and telegraphic superintendents have been compelled to produce copies of private dispatches.
The vital principle of the telegraph is privacy, and if it does not possess this at least on equal terms with the mails, it will rapidly fall into disuse. Congress has no more right to demand the surrender of copies of private dispatches than it has to open letters passing through the mails, or to call upon accused persons and their friends to produce their private correspondence. It is not only Congress, however, that has lately infringed upon the inviolabilty of the telegraph. It came out recently that the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company had sold a great many old dispatches to a junk shop for waste paper, and a House Committee secured the entire heap. It is of course im possible to tell what secrets may not be concealed among those dispatches, and under the hands of a Democratic Committee aided by a regiment of sensational correspondents, it can hardly be hoped that any reputation would be spared, suspicious facts concerning which might be discovered.
The action ot President Eckert, of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, in permitting the old telegrams to go to the junk shop is inexcusable, and suggests the desirability of an inquiry as to what becomes of all old dispatches. The Western Union Company we believe preserve their copies two years, but how they are disposed of at the expiration of that period we do not know. It is clear, however, that the telegraph should be protected, and that the course of these Paul Pry Committees in demanding dispatches is altogether unwarrantable, and a dangerous invasion of private rights which must not pass unrebuked.
Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside, http://cdnc.ucr.edu
RSS Feed