SCN: Re: Privacy

[emailer1]

This points to a problem with the lack of a formal declaration of war as the
basis for the current attacks on Afghanistan.  If there were a declaration
of war, certain restrictive measures could be implemented TEMPORARILY during
the "war."  However, by not declaring war, the restrictions have to be
implemented by the regular legislative process.  While there is a four-year
renewal on some of the elements of the new restrictive legislation, some
elements will endure.

I personally doubt that this more enduring method of restricting our more
open way of life was part of the reason that there was no declaration of
war, but it is a troublesome side-effect of Congress failing to act
responsibly.  It is a good reason for citizens to oppose the war hysteria.

----- Original Message -----
From: Steve <steve at advocate.net>
To: <scn at scn.org>
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 7:25 AM
Subject: SCN: Privacy


> x-no-archive: yes
>
> =====================
>
>
> (Business Week, excerpts)---Polls taken since September 11 show
> that 86% of Americans are in favor of wider use of facial-
> recognition systems, 81% want closer monitoring of banking and
> credit-card transactions, and 68% support a national ID card.
>
> But the quest for safety is also going to come at an incalculable
> cost to personal privacy.
>
> The war on terrorism is still in its early days, but one thing is
> already clear: In the future, information about what you do, where
> you go, who you talk to, and how you spend your money is going
> to be far more available to government, and perhaps business as
> well.
>
> Across a wide range of battlefields, privacy is on the retreat.  Many
> high-tech surveillance tools that were deemed too intrusive before
> September 11...are being unleashed.
>
> Pre-attack legislation aimed at protecting people from unwanted
> privacy invasions has been shelved, while Congress is on the
> verge of passing an anti-terrorism law giving cops broad new
> powers to wiretap, monitor Internet activity, and peer into personal
> bank accounts.
>
> The notion of forcing citizens to carry a national identity card -
> once anathema to America's open culture - is getting more serious
> consideration than ever in U.S. history.
>
> These developments could wind up having profound implications
> for our democracy.  Privacy involves the most fundamental issue in
> governance: the relationship of the individual to the state.
>
> Since the forefathers, Americans have been committed to the idea
> that people have the right to control how much information about
> their thoughts, feelings, choices, and political beliefs is disclosed.
> It's a matter, first and foremost, of dignity - creating a boundary that
> protects people from the prying eyes of the outside world.  That, in
> turn, helps to shield religious minorities, political fringe groups, and
> other outsiders from persecution by the majority.
>
> By reducing our commitment to privacy, we risk changing what it
> means to be Americans.  To the extent that ID cards, databases,
> and surveillance cameras help the government track ordinary
> citizens, they may make people marginally less willing to exercise
> basic freedoms - to travel, to assemble, to speak their minds.  "It's
> possible that through a tyranny of small decisions, we could make
> a nightmare society," says Harvard Law School Professor
> Laurence Tribe.
>
> Of course, we're still a long way from that point.  Although many
> civil libertarians worry that the era of Big Brother is dawning, polls
> show that Americans are still committed to personal privacy and
> are unwilling to give law enforcers a blank check.
>
> But this is a rapidly evolving issue.  We have already abandoned a
> number of old privacy taboos.  If new attacks come and the U.S. is
> powerless to stop them, a mandate could develop for greater
> levels of surveillance.
>
> ...government officials have a long history of abusing their power to
> collect personal information.  Remember J. Edgar Hoover and
> Richard Nixon?
>
> ...databases created for one purpose have a way of being reused
> in unintended ways.  Files that Massachusetts accumulated about
> citizen health insurance claims, for example, had to be turned over
> to the tobacco industry when the state sued cigarette makers
> (though the state took steps to ensure that individuals' identities
> were masked).
>
> One of the most controversial issues on the privacy landscape is
> that of national ID cards.  Many Americans are instinctively
> repulsed by the idea.  Passion runs so strong on this issue that the
> government has repeatedly blocked efforts to use Social Security
> numbers for drivers' licenses, voter registration, and prison
> records.  The fear is that the Social Security number would
> become the equivalent of a national ID card.
>
> More than 100 other countries, many of them democracies,
> disagree.  They come in many varieties.  Germany, after the
> human rights abuses of the Nazis, takes a minimal approach.
> Cards contain basic information, including name, place of birth,
> and eye color.
>
> Malaysia, on the other hand, this year launched a project to issue
> 2 million "multipurpose" cards in Kuala Lumpur.  A computer chip
> allows the card to be used as a combination drivers' license, cash
> card, national health service card, and passport.
>
> That's only the beginning of what's theoretically possible.  Given
> the power of digital technology, criminal records, immigration data,
> and more could be packed onto ID cards.  In fact, they could
> contain so much data that they become the equivalent of portable
> personal files.
>
> The concern, of course, is that ID cards could lead the country
> down a slippery slope.  Over the long run, say critics, they might
> be used as a platform for creating new databases.  Starting with a
> card like, say, the one Malaysia just launched, governments could
> require the ID cards to be swiped into electronic readers every time
> people shopped, traveled, or surfed the Web and could
> accumulate an unprecedented quantity of information on their
> citizens.
>
> For now, though, the question of a national ID card appears to be
> off the agenda, though it's nowhere near dead.  Even some
> longtime civil libertarians are reevaluating. On Sept. 10, "I was a
> knee-jerk opponent of ID cards," says Harvard University law
> professor Alan Dershowitz.  "Now, I've had to rethink the whole
> thing."
>
> In recent years, scientists have made enormous advances in
> location-tracking tools.  Surveillance cameras with facial-
> recognition software can pick out criminals in public places.  Global
> positioning satellite (GPS) transponders in cars, boats - and one
> day, in handheld devices such as phones - send out signals
> identifying people's latitude and longitude to within 10 feet.  Both of
> these technologies will flourish in an environment free of many of
> the privacy concerns that clouded their future before September
> 11.
>
> So far, facial-recognition systems are used primarily in highly
> controlled situations as authentication devices, to vouch for the
> identities of workers entering, say, a nuclear power plant.  They
> are not often used, especially in the U.S., as a general surveillance
> device in public places.
>
> ...in the wake of the terror attacks, a security committee formed by
> Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta has recommended
> the aggressive rollout of facial-recognition systems in airports.  But
> it's still unclear how useful they will be.  They can still be tricked by
> people wearing fake beards.  And they tend to generate too many
> false alarms.  Unless these glitches get fixed, the devices may
> never be appropriate for high-traffic settings such as tunnels and
> bridges.
>
> GPS is a different story.  The technology works - and it has been
> rapidly spreading to new places.  Before September 11, privacy
> groups and some legislators had been working to limit the ability of
> companies to collect location data from customers surreptitiously
> and to raise the legal standards for enforcement officials to
> subpoena this material.  Those battles, for the time being, are lost
> causes.  If GPS information helps track down terrorists, it will be
> collected.
>
> Unlike facial surveillance, ID cards, or data-mining - which invade
> everybody's privacy - the government's new eavesdropping
> powers will primarily target known suspects.  So they don't raise as
> many issues for the public at large.
>
> There's one major exception: Carnivore, a technology the FBI uses
> to monitor e-mails, instant messages, and digital phone calls.
> Carnivore generated widespread controversy before September 11
> for being too powerful.  When installed on a suspect's Internet
> service provider, it searched through not only the suspect's Web
> activities but also those of people who used the same ISP.
>
> After privacy advocates complained, the FBI scaled back its
> deployment.  Now, the brakes are off.  There are widespread
> reports that the government has hooked up Carnivore to ISPs with
> minimal oversight.  The government will probably soon demand
> that ISPs and digital wireless providers design networks to make
> them easier to tap.  Just a few months ago, the FBI wouldn't have
> dared to ask.  Now, such a move would barely make the papers.
>
> Facial-recognition software.  Data mining.  National ID cards.
> Carnivore.  For the near future, these technologies are going to be
> deployed as stand-alone systems, if at all.  But we live in a digital
> age.  All of these technologies are built on ones and zeros.  So it is
> possible to blend them together...into one monster snooping
> technology.  In fact, linking them together makes each one
> exponentially more effective.
>
> A national ID card, for example, could be used to launch a new
> unified database that would track everybody's daily activities.
> Information culled from Carnivore could be stored in the same
> place.  This super database, in turn, could be linked to facial-
> recognition cameras so that an all-points bulletin could go out for a
> potential terrorist the second the data-mining program detected a
> suspicious pattern of conduct.
>
> Other, more futuristic new technologies could be added to the mix.
> Scientists will be able to make much more powerful surveillance
> devices if they're freed of the privacy concerns that have
> restrained them in recent years.  Already, researchers are working
> on satellites that can read the unique color spectrums emitted by
> people's skin and cameras that can tell whether people are lying
> by how frequently they blink.
>
> Left unchecked, technologists could eventually create a nearly
> transparent society, says David J. Farber, a pioneering computer
> scientist who helped develop the Net.  "All the technology is there,"
> he says.  "There is absolutely nothing to stop that scenario--except
> law."
>
> To be sure, nobody is proposing such systems.  And they are a
> long, long way from technical feasibility. But they are within sight -
> and no more far-fetched than, say, eBay...was a generation ago.
> Indeed, unifying the various surveillance systems makes sense
> from a technological standpoint, and there's likely to be strong
> pressure, once the tools are in place, to try to make them work
> better.
>
> As the U.S. enters the next phase of the war on terror, it is useful
> to keep this Orwellian scenario in mind, if only as a warning
> beacon of some of the hazards ahead.  It is also reassuring to
> know that privacy principles developed in the past still apply in this
> new world.
>
> Surveillance can be checked by laws that require regular audits,
> that call for citizens to be notified when they're investigated, and
> that give people the right to correct information collected about
> them.  That's the best way of guaranteeing that, in our efforts to
> catch the next Khalid Al-Midhar, we don't wind up with Big Brother
> instead.
>
>
> Copyright 2000-2001, The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.
>
>
>
>
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