You do realize that gov't emails are supposed to be public, right? That's the law.

I'm sure that Zittrain doesn't think that the government reading the public's e-mails is OK. While this asymmetry is certainly a charge that could be raised against many people, I don't think it works against this particular author.

I'm pretty confident Zittrain would like to see greatly reduced government secrecy and greatly increased privacy protections and doesn't mean to defend the status quo around either of those things.

This is really the only thing you need to say to people having the same views as the author.

It's the government that should be the more transparent one - not the citizens, who are supposed to "own" the government.

Yet things are very much the other way around right now - by a long shot. Government secrecy has only expanded under Obama, even after promising more transparency compared to Bush's own secrecy. Almost every remotely sensitive government document gets "classified" these days. This nonsense needs to stop.

It's even worse when the media colludes with the government to tell citizens that it's "illegal" to read these emails.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161019/07004935835/cnn-t...

The DNC is not the government.