Six Strikes, CISPA, and the Assault on American Privacy

13 Mar, 2013 Pete Ashdown law, privacy

We’ve recently heard from many customers asking whether XMission is following the “Six Strikes” program that other larger Internet providers are undertaking in conjunction with media companies.  XMission is required by the DMCA “safe harbor” law to inform customers of potential copyright infringement sourcing from their account or connection.  We usually do that by passing on an email sent to abuse@xmission.com to our customer.  Never in our history have we had to take action further than that.  XMission support staff, although skilled at helping you with your Internet problems is ill equipped for judicial matters.  We believe that law-enforcement, when equipped with a constitutionally-required warrant, is best for investigating criminal matters.  XMission will cooperate with law-enforcement when they present a proper warrant.

Outside the terms of law-enforcement with warrants, XMission cooperates with no third parties when it comes to the privacy of our customers.  The one exception is sharing merchant info with our credit card processor for payment.  If XMission notices obvious criminal activity, we may report it, but our customers are protected by the fact that we don’t snoop into their activities unless there is a technical reason to do so. The technical aspects of Internet service usually encompass volume, not who or what you are emailing or communicating.  XMission employees who take part in monitoring, or reading private email, without a valid technical reason or permission of the customer are terminated without question.  This is a cardinal policy for XMission employees, and has been executed on before.  We value our customer’s privacy as our own.

Your privacy is not only under attack from other Internet providers colluding with media companies.  Some in our congress and statehouse believe that a properly served warrant is too much of a hassle for law-enforcement to execute.  They believe that Internet providers should be an arm of law-enforcement and government, handing over customer information merely upon request.  XMission not only refuses these requests, even though legislators have attempted to pass them into unconstitutional law, we carry the fight against the further expansion of government into your privacy.  In the past we have fought against SOPA & PIPA, and many attempts by the Utah State Legislature to restrict the Internet.

CISPA is the latest attempt by the U.S. Congress to erode the Bill of Rights 4th Amendment and invade your privacy. XMission encourages you to contact your representative and tell them that you are against wholesale monitoring of Americans and attempts to expand that monitoring by roping in Internet service providers.

cispa, constitution, law, pipa, privacy, six-strikes, sopa, usa

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