This week, Arj and Jordan deconstruct the debate that has sprung up around Elon Musk's attempts to restrict the circulation of publicly available flight data about his private jet.

They discuss how real time flight trackers have been an essential tool for journalists and independent researchers holding billionaires and governments to account and how many arguments about privacy are really arguments about power and accountability.

Going deeper, Arj and Jordan talk about the idea of maintaining a privacy interest in information despite it being publicly available. They explore the important role of law, friction and obscurity in keeping things private even when we can no longer keep things secret.

Links:

Musk bans journalists and suspends account of flight tracking account (NYT) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/16/business/elon-musk-twitter-suspensions.html

WIRED article on Musk banning twitter accounts (WIRED) https://www.wired.co.uk/article/elon-musk-elonjet-flight-tracker-transparency

Article about privacy impacts of electronic court filings (WSJ - paywall) https://www.wsj.com/articles/electronic-court-filings-trial-privacy-records-motions-paper-trail-hippa-sensitive-personal-data-11672869403?mod=Searchresults_pos2&page=1

IAPP article touching on private/public distinction https://iapp.org/news/a/a-view-from-dc-elon-musks-privacy-lessons/

Helen Nissenbaum book on Obfuscation https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262529860/obfuscation/

Paper by constitutional law professor on political donations https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1743742