THINK YOUR EMAIL is private? Think again.
Two Portland LGBT activists got an alarming email in their Google mail inbox this month: Their “customer information” (including name, home address, phone numbers, and billing info) had been subpoenaed by the Alliance Defense Fund, a right-wing Christian nonprofit. Google, along with several other email providers nationwide, was ordered to hand over the activists’ personal info in conjunction with a major lawsuit a Michigan mega-church is filing against queer group Bash Back.
“This really feels like an invasion of privacy, an invasion of my life,” says Portlander Oliver Hayes, who, along with Kat Enyeart, received an email with the attached subpoena to be filled by March 16. “It’s something that just happened because I’m a queer activist, because I’m a queer person. And that, in my opinion, is a very bad reason to track me down.”
Hayes says he was not at the protest that sparked the church’s lawsuit (and has never even set foot in Michigan) but that in 2008 he received an email from a listserv that discussed the protest.
The protest was controversial: In November 2008, about 20 Bash Back activists disrupted a Sunday service at the conservative Mount Hope Church in Lansing, Michigan. The group pulled a fire alarm, made out in front of the congregation, chanted “Jesus was a homo,” and dropped a rainbow banner from the church balcony reading, “It’s okay to be gay!” A few months later, ironically, the church sued Bash Back under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a law intended to protect access to abortion clinics but also “places of worship” from intimidation and inference.
The suit names 15 Midwestern activists, but the church and Alliance Defense Fund are trying to pin down 20 John and Jane Does who may have advertised, supported, or planned the protest. During the past year, right-wing groups have subpoenaed identifying information about dozens of email addresses, says Bash Back’s lawyer Mark Sniderman.
Under federal law, the courts can’t go rifling through email inboxes. But everything that’s not email “content”—like whatever identifying info you supply, or any profiles you create—can possibly be subpoenaed.
Though Google won’t comment on this specific case, Sniderman says the only email provider to fight the subpoena is Riseup.net. If a judge finds the subpoena valid, even Riseup, a Seattle-based collective that promotes “self-determination by controlling our own secure means of communications,” will have to turn over the personal info of its seven users facing the subpoena or face contempt-of-court charges.
For now, Hayes is waiting anxiously to see what happens. “These aren’t people I feel safe around, them having my personal information is something I’m afraid of,” says Hayes. “At this point, what we’re making sure is that a lot of people are watching this unfold with us.”
Download your very own copy of the lawsuit, here.
Download your very own copy of the subpoena, here.
Man, these damned christians are always coming up with ways to fuck with people. They ought to be lucky someone didn’t bomb their stupid fucking church.
They should be thanking Bash Back for contributing to what was obviously the most interesting Sunday service that boring church has ever conceived.
Well they’ll never do that b/c christians are some of the most ungreatful people that ever lived.
Most ungreatful people? That’s too big a blanket to throw out there Damos.
Actually, i was being rather diplomatic. For the sake of civility.
In which Sarah Mirk contradicts herself:
Lede: “THINK YOUR EMAIL is private? Think again.”
Content: “Under federal law, the courts can’t go rifling through email inboxes. But everything that’s not email “content”—like whatever identifying info you supply, or any profiles you create—can possibly be subpoenaed.”
So yes. Apparently, your email is private. Your identity is not. I’m disspaointed with Sarah’s obvious pandering and fear-mongering. I expected better of her as a journalist.
Not to bitch, but how is this different than what happened in California 2 years ago?
When Proposition 8 (banning gay marriage) passed, Gay Rights groups obtained donor lists of people that supported the measure and put them online. People were harassed, and they’re homes and businesses were vandalized. (See the New York Times article “Marriage ban donors feel exposed” Jan 18, 2009.”) This is simply the other side using tactics that the Gay Rights movement has already resorted to.
I guess the take home message is that some people get a bit cranky when you violate their civil rights by trespassing in their church, and disturbing their religious observances. Just saying…
And, before you start tearing strips off me, I’m not religious. Just looking at both sides of the issue.
You mean the same way the KKK bombed black churches in the South when they didn’t like that they were involved in the Civil Rights movement.
That’s a pretty fucked up thing to say, or wish on someone.
Deke, your right-wing lying horseshit isn’t fooling ANYBODY here. Your claim that people were harassed, homes & businesses were vandalized, etc. are a complete fraud! And if you’re citing the NY Times as “proof” then you’re truly full of it!
Yeah, the NY Times is just another Right-wing rag. If you don’t believe the American press, read:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6081
Or simply google “Violence against Prop 8 supporters”. Have a cup of coffee ready, it’ll take some time to read all the articles.
By the way, Dipshit, you don’t know me, or my politics. However, I do support the right of people to excercise their religion without assholes interfering their services over political issues. It’s in the U.S. Constitution. Or is that just another piece of “right wing horsehit”?
The NY Times has been long discredited as a ligitimate news source. And you can leave all the links to obscure “news” sites you want, but it still doesn’t prove a goddamned thing. Anyone who’s supported or voted for Prop8 is a total fascist fuckwit. That said, not single instance of so-called “retalliation” has happened against any Prop8 supporters. And since you’re soo rude, why don’t you give up the right-wing radio brain-washing & MAYBE you could learn some fucking manners.
You half-assed suggest the bombing of churches for political reasons, then call me rude.
I stand by my original assertion that you sir, are a dipshit.
Oh, i never “half-assed” suggested a goddamned thing, sir. On the other hand, your half-assed support for right-wing terrorist groups such as the church are quite evident here.