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Big Brother Is Watching You Shop
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Big Brother Is Watching You Shop
Reuters Page 1 of 1
08:34 AM Mar. 30, 2003 PT
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government has discovered a powerful resource in its war against terrorism -- credit-card records, hotel bills, grocery lists and other records detailing the private lives of its citizens.
Government investigators are turning to commercial databases to track down and isolate possible hijackers and suicide bombers before they strike, raising fear among privacy advocates that long-standing protections against government snooping may be eroded.
The Transportation Security Administration is developing an airline passenger-screening program that would check private records such as credit reports to assess risk, prompting a fierce debate about the merits of such "pattern recognition" systems.
Officials and many security experts say such data mining techniques are necessary to flush out a foe that does not wear a uniform but blends in with ordinary civilians to infiltrate and undermine American society.
Civil-liberties advocates on the left and the right say the tactic could lead back to the bad old days when law-enforcement agencies like the FBI conducted routine, unfettered surveillance on law-abiding citizens like civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
"People in the government, very much so in the Justice Department, have been playing out a lust for information that is not consistent with who we have been as a nation," former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey said recently.
The connection between private and government surveillance is likely to be a hot topic as computer scientists, policy experts and government officials meet this week in New York at the 13th annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference.
Congress has imposed limits on one particularly controversial Defense Department program, but few doubt that investigators will increasingly rely on pattern-recognition techniques and private business records in their efforts to root out extremists. A range of laws limits how government can collect and use information on its citizens. Tax returns and census data are protected from misuse by stiff criminal penalties, while the Privacy Act of 1974 prevents agencies from indiscriminately passing around Social Security records or other personal data. Law-enforcement agencies must get court approval before monitoring phone conversations or e-mail messages.
The private sector, by contrast, operates under fewer restrictions.
Grocery stores offer discounts for shoppers who allow them to track their purchases, while credit bureaus gather consumer financial records so lenders can determine whether a borrower is likely to keep up with mortgage payments.
Online retailers tracking customer browsing and purchasing habits have added to the warehouse of personal information.
Following the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacking attacks, law enforcement agents subpoenaed many of these private databases in a bid to flush out al Qaeda members, said Stewart Baker, a Washington lawyer who formerly served as general counsel to the National Security Agency.
In the process, they have gathered records of people who are not suspects, he said. "Once they get it they like to keep it, because you never know when it might turn out to be useful."
Other pattern-recognition projects such as TSA's passenger screening program are able to sidestep privacy laws because they do not actually collect information but rely on outside databases to reach a decision, experts say. TSA officials have declined to say how they will determine whether a passenger should be allowed on an airplane or singled out for arrest, saying that would allow extremists to alter their behavior to avoid detection.
The agency has met with privacy experts as it designs the system, and promises that government employees will never see personal data.
But innocent people could be harassed or detained if security screeners rely on faulty data, the experts say.
Several travelers have already been kept off planes because they have the same name as someone on government watch lists, according to complaints obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Data mining systems work well if set up properly, said Terry Pittman, a privacy consultant who helped develop marketing systems throughout the 1990s. Those that have failed in the private sector did so because their sponsors ran out of money -- not a likely problem for the government, he said.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,58285,00.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>
Reuters Page 1 of 1
08:34 AM Mar. 30, 2003 PT
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government has discovered a powerful resource in its war against terrorism -- credit-card records, hotel bills, grocery lists and other records detailing the private lives of its citizens.
Government investigators are turning to commercial databases to track down and isolate possible hijackers and suicide bombers before they strike, raising fear among privacy advocates that long-standing protections against government snooping may be eroded.
The Transportation Security Administration is developing an airline passenger-screening program that would check private records such as credit reports to assess risk, prompting a fierce debate about the merits of such "pattern recognition" systems.
Officials and many security experts say such data mining techniques are necessary to flush out a foe that does not wear a uniform but blends in with ordinary civilians to infiltrate and undermine American society.
Civil-liberties advocates on the left and the right say the tactic could lead back to the bad old days when law-enforcement agencies like the FBI conducted routine, unfettered surveillance on law-abiding citizens like civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
"People in the government, very much so in the Justice Department, have been playing out a lust for information that is not consistent with who we have been as a nation," former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey said recently.
The connection between private and government surveillance is likely to be a hot topic as computer scientists, policy experts and government officials meet this week in New York at the 13th annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference.
Congress has imposed limits on one particularly controversial Defense Department program, but few doubt that investigators will increasingly rely on pattern-recognition techniques and private business records in their efforts to root out extremists. A range of laws limits how government can collect and use information on its citizens. Tax returns and census data are protected from misuse by stiff criminal penalties, while the Privacy Act of 1974 prevents agencies from indiscriminately passing around Social Security records or other personal data. Law-enforcement agencies must get court approval before monitoring phone conversations or e-mail messages.
The private sector, by contrast, operates under fewer restrictions.
Grocery stores offer discounts for shoppers who allow them to track their purchases, while credit bureaus gather consumer financial records so lenders can determine whether a borrower is likely to keep up with mortgage payments.
Online retailers tracking customer browsing and purchasing habits have added to the warehouse of personal information.
Following the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacking attacks, law enforcement agents subpoenaed many of these private databases in a bid to flush out al Qaeda members, said Stewart Baker, a Washington lawyer who formerly served as general counsel to the National Security Agency.
In the process, they have gathered records of people who are not suspects, he said. "Once they get it they like to keep it, because you never know when it might turn out to be useful."
Other pattern-recognition projects such as TSA's passenger screening program are able to sidestep privacy laws because they do not actually collect information but rely on outside databases to reach a decision, experts say. TSA officials have declined to say how they will determine whether a passenger should be allowed on an airplane or singled out for arrest, saying that would allow extremists to alter their behavior to avoid detection.
The agency has met with privacy experts as it designs the system, and promises that government employees will never see personal data.
But innocent people could be harassed or detained if security screeners rely on faulty data, the experts say.
Several travelers have already been kept off planes because they have the same name as someone on government watch lists, according to complaints obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Data mining systems work well if set up properly, said Terry Pittman, a privacy consultant who helped develop marketing systems throughout the 1990s. Those that have failed in the private sector did so because their sponsors ran out of money -- not a likely problem for the government, he said.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,58285,00.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>
Comments
Sunday, March 30, 2003
By ELISE PROULX
Register Staff Writer
The USA PATRIOT Act -- the acronym for United and Strengthening by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism -- is a lengthy and complicated law that was rushed through Congress in October 2001 in response to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
This law frees federal law enforcement agencies from many legal restrictions formerly required to attain search warrants and to subpoena documents and records.
It allows the federal government greater powers of spying on its own citizens and foreign citizens in the U.S., including cybersurveillance, expands the definition of terrorism and allows the government access to an individual's records -- library, medical, sales, etc. -- without probable cause for a crime.
The act, which is more than 300 pages long, also establishes a counterterrorism fund; strengthens America's borders; increases FBI funding; increases the powers of the FISA, or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, court; reinforces existing money-laundering laws; allows immigrants to be detained indefinitely; and more.
It also adds electronic and computer communications surveillance to existing types of surveillance allowed under FISA and expands the types of records that can be requested.
The section of the Patriot Act that most affects libraries is Section 215, which alters the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. Under this alteration, the FBI can access an individual's business records, such as library patron records, without that person being informed and without probable cause for a crime or a traditional search warrant. Libraries, or other entities keeping such records, may not tell their patrons that their records have been requested or viewed by the FBI. They themselves may be prosecuted if they do so.
The act has a "sunset clause," which means that four years after it passed, Congress will have a chance to revisit and revise the law.
The Patriot Act has sparked a fair amount of controversy. It was the subject of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Booksellers for Free Expression, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Freedom to Read Foundation (which is the First Amendment legal defense arm of the American Library Association), asking for the number of bookstore, library and other subpoenas issued so far.
According to the ACLU in a press release dated March 24, some of the documents provided as a result of that suit are blacked-out "National Security Letters" signed by Attorney General John Ashcroft used to request client records from phone companies, Internet service providers and credit agencies. The letters circumvent judicial approval.
In terms of library patrons' privacy, "The government has begun to use an extraordinarily broad surveillance provision that could be used to force libraries and bookstores to report on their patrons' and customers' reading habits," the ACLU concluded from the newly released records.
On Friday, the ACLU's lawyers requested that a federal judge order the government to release additional documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Associated Press has reported that Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, are sponsoring legislation that would require the Justice Department to publicly account for the use of FISA warrants.
Attorney General Ashcroft has approved more than 170 emergency domestic spying warrants since the Sept. 11 attacks, triple the number approved in the previous 23 years.
The American Library Association also passed a resolution in January urging Congress to change the law. The ALA "opposes any use of governmental power to suppress the free and open exchange of knowledge and information or to intimidate individuals exercising free inquiry," the resolution reads in part.
Even as an expanded version of the Patriot Act, known as the USA PATRIOT Act II, is being considered, Rep. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., introduced a bill in mid-March to exempt libraries and booksellers from the provisions in the Patriot Act that allow the government to search records without a traditional search warrant. That bill is called the Freedom to Read Protection Act. Oakland Representative Barbara Lee and Petaluma Representative Lynn Woolsey are co-sponsors.
http://www.napanews.com/templates/index.cfm?template=story_full&id=B84E4BE1-533F-4AF2-9CD1-6C9458CAC76A
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>