Internet Travel Advisory

The brand name Windows took on a new meaning yesterday as Microsoft began its new program of searching through the private computer files of everyone who comes to the Microsoft web site looking for a software update. Microsoft has long engaged in practices such as tracking customers as they move through the Internet, but electronic privacy activists regard the new program to peek at customers’ computers as particularly troubling.

Microsoft insists that no one need fear its giant roving electronic eye coming into their home computers to see what it can see. Microsoft spokespeople promise that they’ll only look for information that could help them catch people using pirated software. Oh, they promise. They double triple promise.

As bad it could be for Microsoft to be gathering databases on the contents of all their customers’ computers, even more frightening is the prospect of what could happen if that database got into the hands of the Bush Administration. The Bush Administration has shown a liking for gigantic files on people who publicly disagree with its policies. In this era of the Patriot Act, the Bush Administration has been seizing the contents of commercial databases, even when companies have privacy policies expressly forbidding that information from being shared. In fact, the Bush Administration has developed several projects that aim to compile information from many separate commercial databases into one gigantic Homeland Security database.

It’s entirely reasonable to believe that if Microsoft is collecting information on the files that are on your computer, that information could in turn be collected by the Republican government from Microsoft.

Got anything on your computer that you don’t want George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to see? Well, then, it looks like it’s time to pull the shades down on your Windows. Oh, and keep in mind that John Roberts and his Federalist Society chums don’t believe that you have a right to privacy.