Are you afraid technology will replace you?
We (the humans) are in this together because technology affects everyone.
Want to know a secret?
Just keep reading.
To All of Us Hunched Over Our Phones:
Although I will cover cybersecurity, information assurance, data security, data privacy, data breaches, AI, social media, and other quasi-legal and legal topics, these are issues not just for lawyers but for everyone—everyone that’s human that is.
What I’m really talking about is privacy in our virtual lives. And what are these issues really about? Safety. I want people to be safe online, feel safe online, and have their information—their very privacy and sense of well-being—protected. That’s not going to come with a mere antivirus software update.
SECRET REVEALED: And we need to learn to protect our own privacy because the government, other people, corporations, and the courts repeatedly fail us. By and large, they do not care, or they would have made you safer.
And it’s not only that they refuse to care. It’s that they remain willfully ignorant of what it takes to fix the problem(s). They are also betting that you don’t care either. Because not caring about your data that’s being bought and sold a thousand times over makes you vulnerable to ID theft and vulnerable to online manipulation. Same goes for you family members. Make no mistake: your data (all of our data) is by far the most valuable commodity on Earth. Nothing else comes close.
Don’t scowl at me like this guy below just because I gave you bad news. I want to provide helpful information because that’s what lawyers should be doing—helping people.
It’s up to us, together, and I want to help. We can all help each other.
Sincerely,
Michael Wells, Esq., MLS
P.S. You can keep reading or not. If this offends you…it wasn’t intended. Thanks for at least clicking.
If you want to know more, keep reading and consider subscribing.
1. We are in the midst of the greatest technological revolution in human history.
That revolution is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is oh so convenient to have that app which populates all your payment information and seems to know everything about you. On the other hand, it threatens our privacy, which we know because we all dismiss that nagging thought, what all do they know about me? Who is the THEY that knows, too? The sad truth is I don’t know—not fully.
Here’s what I can tell you: We all sacrifice privacy for convenience, but do we give up all of our privacy just because we didn’t real a 70 “disclosure” on a free app we downloaded in 2017? We shouldn’t have to.
Uncomfortable? I know I am. Here’s a little AI generated “art” to make you feel better about our glorious future.
Doesn’t this guy make you feel better about the future?
He is the future, and he’s here now. I know, I know. You aren’t worried, huh? On the offhand chance you might be alarmed as you’ve heard so much about AI, I suggested you keep reading (and…psst…subscribe).
Are we all doomed? Maybe, maybe not. No one knows.
However…
Steps can be taken to minimize this risk if people read, learn, talk, and work together.
Privacy matters to hundreds of millions of people in the United States, not just lawyers, judges, social scientists, policy makers, and companies who fear being sued over privacy violations. The right to privacy is a fundamental right recognized as existing under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.[1] When a right is deemed fundamental under the Constitution, it means it is so vital to human existence that life cannot be lived in any fulfilling and meaningful way without it.[2]
Although the Constitution generally addresses freedoms as they pertain to an individual against the government, privacy is a much broader concept and right, one that is in grave danger. In America, both the government and big business are eroding the right to privacy.[3]
Currently, the government, corporations, data brokers, and health providers are all collecting our personal, medical, and financial information, the most intimate details of our lives; sometimes we know about it, and sometimes—often—we do not.[4] This data is the most valuable commodity on earth, and it is being collected, packaged, and sold, often without our consent or knowing.[5]
Protecting the right to privacy means protecting this personal data, our personal data, which is comprised of the most intimate details of our lives such as our sexual preference, our sex lives, gender identity, medical history, thoughts, doubts, needs, desires, preferences, things we only tell our loved ones (and that they tell us), our emails, texts, online chats, browsing history, purchasing history, nanny cam videos, and private details about our young children. In short, privacy is a “precondition to a life of meaning.”[6] Imagine that information is vulnerable, that we are vulnerable, that our children are vulnerable. Because it is vulnerable. We are all vulnerable, which means we are unsafe unless we can somehow be protected.
When a data breach occurs, our private information, intimate data about what creates our identity and what makes us human, it is stolen by hackers from, for example, online retailers such as Target, Walmart, Amazon, LinkedIn, Equifax, TransUnion, and others, and more than likely used to steal our identity and do us personal, financial, and psychological harm.[7]
2. I want more than a dialogue—I want a large debate with many people all of whom say what works and what doesn’t.
We can all learn from each other. When OpenAI introduced ChatGPT earlier this year, it sent shock waves throughout the world. Although AI has been around for quite a while and used by most of us (Alexa, Westlaw, GPS, Google, and Siri), many in the news outlets, social media, and other web publications made it out to be that the Terminator robots were taking over. It isn’t really that way.
But we can and should learn about AI and other technologies. We simply have to to stay competent…to remain professionally viable…to not be obsolete.
3. What the hell do I know, and why am I sending you this?
For the reasons set forth in this section, I believe I have specialized knowledge that can help people—not just lawyers—protect themselves from technology as well as use technology to their advantage. I have practiced law for 18 years representing injured people, victims of data breaches in plaintiff’s data breach class actions in both state and federal court, and I’ve helped corporations as well.
Specifically, here’s what I can do: draft 1) Cybersecurity Policies, 2) Data Privacy Policies, 3) Data Collection Policies, and 4) AI Policies. And I can also give advice that is both legal and technologically based.
What qualifies me to do these things?
To start, my ample litigation experience. This means I have extensive knowledge about how personal identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI) are stolen by hackers or disclosed in an unauthorized manner. I know how the theft of this data affects people, businesses, and governments. More importantly, I know how to take measures to prevent these kinds of problems.
I know a great deal about and have litigated the following privacy statutes CCPA, FCRA, DPPA, CMIA, GLBA, TCPA, and I waged legal battles against Five Guys, the 49ers, and Arthur J. Gallagher to name a few corporate behemoths.
And I also worked for the CDC Foundation, which means I have drafted agreements related to privacy and protecting PII and PHI as well as revised and wrote regulations pertaining to health and safety.
Way back when I even worked for a United States Senator in Washington, D.C.
I have a BA from the University of Virginia and a JD from Wake Forest University School of Law. Significantly, I also have a Master of Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science, which is no. 1 in American and tied for no. 1 in the world.
While I have considered being a law librarian/law professor, working for a company, or a full-time writer, I am above all else a lawyer.
And what is it lawyers are supposed to do?
Use the law to help people. And that’s what I want to do even if I never meet you, know of you, or communicate with you. I want to provide something useful and that makes a difference. This is why I’m writing this. I may fail miserably, but I at least want to try.
4. Please “subscribe” either up top or by clicking just below this line. “Donations” are accepted as well.
There are free subscription options as well as low cost monthly and yearly subscription options.
This technology is here to stay. Are you going to learn about it or let it make you obsolete?
I can keep you updated.
Thanks for reading this, and I’d love to have you as a regular reader.
5. Thank you again (can’t say it enough), and here’s how to contact me:
I’d love to hear from you at michaelwuva78@gmail.com
Sincerely,
Michael Wells, Esq., MLS
P.S. I would be remiss if I didn’t add…I know other lawyers who are knowledgeable in this sphere, and they will disagree with everything I say in this. That’s fine. I welcome those disagreements. Say what you want. I want a dialogue. I want more than a dialogue. I want people everywhere to talk about these things. Even a Parisian mob is fine. Ah…Paris…I miss you and will be back.
P.S.S. So…I’m a lawyer, but I’m also a freaking librarian. I WANT people to read about AI and technology. Heck, read about anything. Just read. Read anything and everything. Note: I’m not making this up. I do have an MLS from UNC Chapel Hill. Yes, old sport, I am a UVA and UNC grad. I maintain that duality in my mind daily. Drawing upon the narrator in the movie the Thin Red Line where he says, “Why does nature vie with itself?” It’s a little like that being a Tar Heel and a Wahoo at the same time. I think I have that James Jones book in my office—that one the movie is based on. It's on top of my 110-year-old Black’s Law Dictionary, 2nd Edition, right beside my vintage Yoda. See…I too feel trapped between the past, living in the present, and have one eye peeking over the covers into the big, scary future.
Note too: that’s an “I” in AI and not a “1” because you’d be shocked that some lawyers can’t grasp that. And not everyone reads like you Blue Book lovers, able to catch such and obvious typo and “formatting” error as all the pedantic, schoolmarmish members of our profession constantly rage about. Not that I’ve ever purposely made the formatting be a little off just to “mess with” those types. They do live a tortured existence.
[1] U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1.
[2] Fundamental Right, LII / Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fundamental_right (last visited Apr 1, 2023).
[3] Adam D. Moore, Privacy, Speech, and Values: What We Have No Business Knowing, SSRN Journal (2015).
[4] Chris Kirkham, Jeffrey Dastin & Jeffrey Dastin, A look at the intimate details Amazon knows about us, Reuters, Nov. 19, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/technology/look-intimate-details-amazon-knows-about-us-2021-11-19/ (last visited Apr 15, 2023).
[5] Data: The Most Valuable Commodity for Businesses, KDnuggets, https://www.kdnuggets.com/data-the-most-valuable-commodity-for-businesses.html (last visited Apr 15, 2023).
[6] Danielle Keats Citron, The fight for privacy: protecting dignity, identity, and love in the digital age, Introduction, xii (First edition ed. 2022).
[7] Daniel J. Marcus, The Data Breach Dilemma: Proactive Solutions for Protecting Consumers' Personal Information, 68 DUKE L.J. 555 (2018).
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This publication is intended as a forum for information about the law and other topics of interest to the author and his readers, but is not intended to provide legal advice or opinion, or to establish an attorney-client relationship. No attorney-client relationship is intended to be formed, nor is it formed. The author’s statements are not attributable to Michael Wells, Wells Law, PLLC, or any other person or entity not specified herein. The author’s statements may fail to represent the law or other topics of interest precisely or broadly.
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