Accidental Privacy Spills: Musings on Privacy, Democracy, and the Internet from James Grimmelmann on LawMeme takes a long look at a fascinating thing I’ve been watching bubble away on MeFi…

I’ll let James tell the story.

Well, maybe I’ll introduce it.

What if you emailed a letter to some pals detailing an interesting time you had among some very wealthy, powerful people, who had invited you partly based on your skill as a writer, and partly based on your discrection?

What if someone you mailed it to (let’s be charitable and invoke the proverbial Mom clause here) forwarded the message, and it ended up as the subject of a debate as to the authenticity of the note in a public forum such as MetaFilter?

Oh, it’s plenty interesting.