Writing from 48° 51’ 44’’ North 2° 21’ 3’’ East

Twitter is the latest piece in one's digital identity. Where I am, what am I doing, at this micro moment, is for me to advertise, to make public. What's public is no longer private (duh), and thus, is up for grabs for everybody.

As Justice Harlan wrote more than forty years ago, "(...) a man's home, is, for most purposes, a place where he expects privacy, but objects, activities, or staements that he exposes to the "plain view" of outsiders are not 'protected" because no intention to keep them to himself has been exhibited. On the other hand, conversations in the open would not be protected agaisnt being overheard, for the expectation of privacy under the circumstances would be unreasonable."

Twitter users may save lives, but more often than not, Twitter does not serve as as back up 911 number. It is a way to keep in touch it is a way to be tracked down. The line is, indeed, fine. As always in digital privacy issues, it is the aggregation of data that is the threat. Now that Google may buy Twitter, there is a real possibilities that our sweets little tweets may be exactly located on Earth, courtesy of Google's Latitude.

Do I Belong?

As a teenager, I developed some interests (AC DC) in order to belong, and some others, (Desmond Morris works) in order to look original, and, therefore, to increase even more my chances to belong. Thanks to Google Zeitgeist, I can now always check my ability to gain friends, and have a fun dinner party.

As of today, December 10, I am indeed concerned, like my fellow Americans, about the chances of the Yankees to gain CC Sabathia in the next season (# 28 on the list as of now.) I happen to know by chance the meaning of the # 1 on the list right now, eclampsia, because some characters of novels I read over the years, which titles are long forgotten, have suffered from that medical issue, and I send my warmest wishes to the women concerned about it. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which 60th birthday we are celebrating), is two places above the NJ lottery, # 81 and # 83 respectively. May winning the lottery become a right, and may some of the money won in lotteries this year be directed to organisations fighting for the preservation of these precious rights (first in mind, the Southern Poverty Law Center)

It is probably for the best that I am moving out of New York City this month. According to this New York Times article, Google queries reflect my fellow New Yorkers' interest in the Proton Collider and Walter Gropius. While I admire the Bauhaus greatly, I confess that I have never looked up information about it. Even more embarrassing, I was not concerned at all this year about the possibility of being engulfed for eternity in a black hole created by the hubris of proton scientists, somewhere in Switzerland. Switzerland still calls to my mind images of the Berne bears, and of the Milka cow.

But my concerns about not belonging are not important. I am more concerned about the possible chilling effect on Google queries that this monitoring could have. Would I feel 100% free to query Milka cow + Proton Collider+ how to make a bomb? Probably not.