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The Charlotte – May 30, 2004
Surrendering our privacy for security
How much surveillance of ordinary American life is reasonable to protect U.S.?
ANNE-MARIE O'CONNOR - Los Angeles Times
It's a simple task: renewing a bank check card. But first, the Wells Fargo Bank clerk requires personal information, "to help the government fight the funding of terrorism."
How long have you been at your current address? he asks. Are you a U.S. citizen? What are your Social Security and driver's license numbers? Your date of birth? Your home phone number?
"It's part of the USA Patriot Act," explains Sherry Kamkar, the manager of the Santa Monica, Calif., branch.
Since new security laws were introduced following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, information-gathering has crept into the most basic transactions of American life. Mortgage brokers' identification procedures must, in the words of one Treasury Department directive, help "determine whether the customer appears on any list of suspected terrorists." American Airlines recently became the third airline, after Northwest and JetBlue, to acknowledge giving the personal records of millions of passengers to the government.
But other unprecedented information demands are unrelated to the national security drive. Earlier this year, for example, the Justice Department unsuccessfully attempted to subpoena abortion records from hospitals and Planned Parenthood offices, ostensibly to scrutinize enforcement of late-term abortion laws, saying consumers no longer had a "reasonable expectation" of medical record confidentiality.
These forays into areas previously deemed off-limits are part of a growing culture of official information gathering that has some critics calling for scrutiny.
A chorus of concerned citizens, local officials and organizations -- ranging from municipal and state governments to the American Civil Liberties Union, gun rights groups and conservative Republican legislators -- is calling for a rollback of portions of the Patriot Act, the sweeping law enacted by Congress to fight terrorism six weeks after Sept. 11 that critics contend erodes basic civil liberties.
Technology for accessing personal data has grown by leaps and bounds, creating concerns over the potential misuses of immense troves of personal data -- from addresses and birth dates to Social Security and home phone numbers -- routinely relinquished by consumers everywhere from supermarkets to video and auto-parts stores. Yet at a time when Western Europe and Canada are responding to this information boom with stricter privacy laws, U.S. privacy guarantees are actually being weakened under the banner of national security, experts say.
The Bush administration says the sweeping new investigative powers are needed to prevent terrorist attacks that could imperil thousands of lives and threaten one of the most basic civil rights: to live without fear.
But a report released Thursday from a panel created by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recommends that the Defense Department take steps to ensure privacy when mining data to fight terrorism. The report, by the Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee, also urges Congress to pass stronger privacy laws and calls on the courts and the president to take action to protect Americans in the face of new information-gathering technologies that make anti-terrorism privacy issues "not the tip of the iceberg, but rather one small specimen in a sea of icebergs."
Never before has so much information on private American citizens been available to so many, said Mark Frankel, the director of the scientific freedom, responsibility and law program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which co-sponsored a forum on the issue in Washington a few weeks ago called "Can Anonymity Survive in a Post-9/11 Society?"
"There seem to be more and more efforts to collect information on the assumption that it is going to help protect me against terrorists or provide better business to my customers," Frankel said. …. One of the greatest risks, he said, is identity theft, which victimized 10 million Americans last year.
Another concern is that information collected under the banner of national security could be misused to monitor or stifle dissidence, Frankel said. Last summer, when Texas Democrats famously took off for Oklahoma in a successful attempt to kill a congressional redistricting plan, Texas officials requested a small unit of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security help search for the plane of one of the filibustering legislators.
The FBI can now gather information on businesses suspected of financing terrorism without informing the businesses. In Washington, D.C., video security cameras monitor protest marches, but they also can be used to keep track of who participates, Frankel said.
"The potential for abuse is not insignificant at all," Frankel said. "The Nixon administration's enemies list was well known. We know that the IRS, in the past, has been accused of collecting data on people requested by the White House, saying, `Let's see if we can get them on their taxes and make trouble for them.' " ……
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/editorial/8796903.htm?1c
THE SAFE ACT
Balancing Privacy, National Security
TERRORISM INFORMATION AWARENESS
In 2002, the Department of Defense introduced TIA, a data-mining program that would scan public and private databases looking for signs of terrorist activities. Privacy concerns led Congress to abolish the program soon after, but left open the possibility of funding for TIA-like activities. In 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appointed an independent advisory committee -- the Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee -- to examine privacy issues related to TIA.
TECHNOLOGY AND PRIVACY ADVISORY COMMITTEE
TAPAC was charged with advising Rumsfeld on the protection of personal privacy during the pursuit of technological solutions to identify terrorists.
TAPAC discovered that at least six other federal agencies have data-mining programs similar to TIA.
HIGHLIGHTS OF TAPAC REPORT
Calls TIA "a flawed effort to achieve worthwhile ends." The panel found legal requirements that apply to data-mining programs are "disjointed and often outdated."
Says safeguards are needed to adequately protect privacy rights and other civil liberties; urges new regulatory rules, administrative oversight mechanisms and legal framework to guarantee citizen's right to privacy.
At a glance version: http://craig.senate.gov/ releases/pr101503a.htm Full version: www.techlawjournal.com/ cong108/craig_safe/ s1709is.asp
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