Who's lookin' at you?

[lookin]

(I moved this from the James Holmes thread as it was a bit of a highjack and may get more interest here.)

Yeah lookin if any government body ever tried to do what your are suggesting the ACLU would be all over their case screaming violation of privacy and baseless profiling. They would ask, rather correctly, who is to decide who should and who should not be profiled. This is an incredibly slippery slope which should NOT be addressed in the heat of this moment.

If, that is, they knew about it. When you have a few minutes, please read this article and tell me if you think anything in it is incorrect. If not, I think you'll have to agree that very few, including the ACLU, have much of a clue what information is being collected. And even fewer have any interest in limiting it.

As far as I can tell, this on-going process of collecting, and mining, data on U. S. citizens is nowhere in the public debate. It appears to be going in one direction only, and that is the collection, storage, and eventual analysis of all electronic data. I have yet to find an exception. Still lookin' though.

[Lucky]

Wow, that's a long article about some stuff I don't like to know about. I want my privacy, or at least that's what I tell my friends at Facebook when I share stories about my sexual escapades and let strangers read them.

I had to Google some terms to explain what I like and Google kept a record of what I searched for, plus they read all of my email, but that's nothing like NSA wants to do, is it? I mean, it's not like NSA has cookies on our computer! It's not, isn't it? Hmm, maybe I will read that long article.

First I have to go shopping, where I save all kinds of money by using my card that lets the stores know everything I buy.

[Lucky]

Okay, I read the article. It is really scary but I know it is just some kind of a joke because our country would never tolerate such a thing. But, just in the case it is for real, I am going to encrypt my opinion of it so that they won't figure out what I think...at least right away!

Lucky's opinion:

tiusksc!

(I see that the NY Times covered this in much less detail last month. Hopefully they are researching ti further and not just relying on one man to tell the whole story.)

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/06/13/did-any-good-come-of-watergate/since-watergate-government-surveillance-is-more-sophisticated

[AdamSmith]

Lookin, thank you for the link.

One of the heroes I keep harking back to, Sen. Sam Ervin (not without his feet of clay on some major issues including affirmative action and the ERA, but acting even there on consistent principle and good-faith motive), had this to say in condemnation of the government's penchant for gathering information on its citizens, in clear contravention of the Constitution's aim of securing individual liberty: http://blogs.georgetown.edu/?id=29463

[Lucky]

Secret surveillance orders from federal magistrates are on the rise: http://www.sfgate.co...ise-3731617.php

[TampaYankee]

We actually need an explicit amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing our privacy. However, that will never happen since the Government and Monied Interests are against it. You can take that to the bank.

[Lucky]

I am truly surprised that this thread did not get more traction. It's some pretty surprising stuff...

[lookin]

I think the reason the thread didn't get more traction here is the same reason the issue doesn't get more traction in the public debate in general. Actually, I believe there are several reasons:

First and foremost, the primary enabling legislation, the Patriot Act, was passed in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks. The federal government had been caught with its pants down in not processing information that it had already legitimately acquired under existing laws. As is so often the case when the government fails to act under existing laws, it creates some new ones.

It took less than seven weeks for both Houses of Congress to pass this massive law, with many alleging that not a single Senator had even read the bill before voting in favor of it. In a stroke of propaganda genius that would have impressed Josef Goebbels, even the name of the bill was selected to deliver quick and unthinking passage. The fact that it had nothing to do with patriotism and everything to do with limiting constitutional guarantees was lost in the frenzy to be seen to be doing something, anything, to protect American lives. Again lost in the discussion was the fact that the three thousand lives lost on September 11th, while to be deeply mourned, were a small fraction of the lives lost in protecting the freedoms that this legislation stripped away.

In spite of not having read it, every U. S. Senator, with the exception of Russ Feingold voted for it with little to no hesitation. (To this day, Feingold considers his vote against it "one of the best things I've ever done".)

The second reason is that, like the legislators who passed it, hardly any of us have much of an inkling what this legislation allows. You can see it here in this thread, and those who have responded are among the most informed and active of U. S. citizens. Imagine the lack of awareness among the less-informed majority.

Third, very few of us expect that we will ever be affected personally by the loss of privacy and constitutional protection under the law. And, by the time any of us is affected it will almost certainly be too late to do anything about it.

Fourth, we want to believe that others will assume responsibility for protecting us. We assume that organizations like the ACLU and the EFF will make sure that our rights are not abridged. However, they are as much under the thumb of this law as we are, and are themselves unable to see most of what's happening behind the scenes.

And, fifth, I believe that, for the foreseeable future, the worst invasions of privacy allowed by this law are not likely to occur. I believe that most of those who are in charge of collecting and analyzing information on individual citizens are not ill-intentioned. I hope that that continues to be the case for many centuries into the future. The difficulty with that argument, however, is that our civil liberties should never be linked only to the intentions of whoever is in power at the moment. They should remain enshrined in the Constitution and in every law in the land. That link, however, has now been broken.

It remains to be seen whether or not it can be forged again.

[lookin]

Lookin, thank you for the link.

One of the heroes I keep harking back to, Sen. Sam Ervin (not without his feet of clay on some major issues including affirmative action and the ERA, but acting even there on consistent principle and good-faith motive), had this to say in condemnation of the government's penchant for gathering information on its citizens, in clear contravention of the Constitution's aim of securing individual liberty: http://blogs.georgetown.edu/?id=29463

Thanks for your link, AdamSmith! Senator Ervin sure said it better than I did.

Senator Sam Ervin, the author of groundbreaking legislation in this area, warned eloquently in June 1974 of the dangers that arise when the “natural tendency of government to acquire and keep and share information about citizens is enhanced by computer technology” without legal and judicial restraint.

“Each time we give up a bit of information about ourselves to the government, we give up some of our freedom,” he said. “For the more the government or any institution knows about us, the more power it has over us. When the government knows all of our secrets, we stand naked before official power. Stripped of our privacy, we lose our rights and privileges. The Bill of Rights then becomes just so many words.”

[Lucky]

Senator Frank Church also said it well, on August 17th, 1975. His quote now leads Brad Thor's latest novel, Black List, focusing on the extreme surveillance of US citizens.

(Yes, I read Brad Thor novels!)

But, Politico covered the quote last year:

By Sept. 11, 2011, the words of George Orwell in his novel “1984” will have become prophetic. “Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it,” he wrote in 1949, long before the Internet. “You have to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard.”

On Sept. 10, 2001, however, Winston would have found a radically different society. The NSA, the surveillance equivalent of a nuclear bomb, was allowed to point its massive antennas and satellites only away from the country. Before an American could be targeted, a judge from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would first have to find a link to terrorism or espionage in order to issue a warrant. And installing permanent taps on all of the country’s major communications links would have been impossible.

More than 35 years earlier, one person warned of such a possibility. On Aug. 17, 1975, as America was enjoying a lazy summer watching “Jaws” and “The Exorcist” at the movies, Idaho Sen. Frank Church took his seat on “Meet the Press.” For months, as the first chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Church had been conducting the first in-depth investigation of America’s growing intelligence community.

When he looked into the NSA, he came away shocked by its potential for abuse. Without mentioning the agency’s name — almost forbidden at the time — he nonetheless offered an unsolicited but grave warning:

“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such [is] the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter,” Church said. “There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

“I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

Church’s warning then has even more resonance today. In 1975, most people communicated only by telephone and the mail. While the NSA had the technical capability back then to intercept the limited telephone calls sent by satellite, it lacked the capability to monitor the millions of calls transmitted around the country over wires, the predominant method used, or anything sent through the mail.

Read more (and there is more!):

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/62999.html

[Lucky]

The Brad Thor novel, Black List, centers around a shadow government of very powerful men who plan to use the Utah Data Center to nefarious ends. Very timely novel, and a fun read, at least for me.

[lookin]

Thanks, Lucky, for the link. I'm not much of a fiction reader but, if you tell me that he gets into data mining too, I'll track this one down.

There are already fifty reviews on Amazon, most quite favorable, and that seems like a lot for a book that's been out such a short time. I'm glad to see it as my hunch is that most folks would like to turn away from this subject and think about it as little as possible.

A popular, well-written thriller may be the sugar that helps the medicine go down.

[Lucky]

Thor has done his homework. He educates his readers on the

Protecting Cyberspace As A National Asset Act (net neutrality) He's a nay

PCNAA- allows the prez to shut down the entire internet

the 9-11 State of Emergency Act- supposedly allows the prez to declare one for up to 2 years, yet it is still in effect after 9-11 as prez keeps renewing it- it waives habeas corpus and the right of the National Guard to appear before a grand jury, which he explains means that if they disobey orders, it is only the military that can discipline

The media monitoring initiative. If you post on a social network, you become part of the media, and thus subject to surveillance. Take that Facebook!

Of course we already know that most communication companies have immunity if they wrongfully turnover records.

There's a lot more...all scary. Damn straight we better trust our leaders! But they are the ones who enacted the Patriot Act without even reading it!

[Lucky]

In a NY Times article on trust in a digital age, one adviser was asked what worries him the most.

" His answers surprised me. He is more worried about the international cyberarms race than about outright cyberwar. He’s also concerned about cybercrime. But his greatest fear is ubiquitous surveillance: license-plate readers, sensors, geolocation tracking and so on.

He is troubled, too, by the Internet’s refusal to let our memories fade. He predicts a presidential race in the near future in which a candidate’s bad junior high school poetry will be resurrected as a political weapon.

“You should be mindful,” he warned, “that the Internet never forgets.”

Trust: Ill-Advised in a Digital Age can be read here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/sunday-review/bruce-schneier-an-avatar-of-digital-distrust.html?_r=1

[lookin]

Intelligence effort named citizens, not terrorists

WASHINGTON (AP) - A multibillion-dollar information-sharing program created in the aftermath of 9/11 has improperly collected information about innocent Americans and produced little valuable intelligence on terrorism, a Senate report concludes. It portrays an effort that ballooned far beyond anyone's ability to control.

What began as an attempt to put local, state and federal officials in the same room analyzing the same intelligence has instead cost huge amounts of money for data-mining software, flat screen televisions and, in Arizona, two fully equipped Chevrolet Tahoes that are used for commuting, investigators found.

. . . Congress is unlikely to pull the plug. That's because, whether or not it stops terrorists, the program means politically important money for state and local governments.

. . . "The subcommittee investigation could identify no reporting which uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could it identify a contribution such fusion center reporting made to disrupt an active terrorist plot," the report said.

When fusion centers did address terrorism, they sometimes did so in ways that infringed on civil liberties. The centers have made headlines for circulating information about Ron Paul supporters, the ACLU, activists on both sides of the abortion debate, war protesters and advocates of gun rights.

One fusion center cited in the Senate investigation wrote a report about a Muslim community group's list of book recommendations. Others discussed American citizens speaking at mosques or talking to Muslim groups about parenting.

No evidence of criminal activity was contained in those reports. The government did not circulate them, but it kept them on government computers. The federal government is prohibited from storing information about First Amendment activities not related to crimes.

. . . following the release of the report, Homeland Security officials indicated their continued strong support for the program.

Quelle surprise! I can't imagine who in our own government will actually have the courage to step up and defend our civil liberties. Certainly no one has done so yet. I wonder if it will take someone from across the pond to remind us that we still have civil rights on the books in this country.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Well this kind of intelligence acitivity, I don't fear or worry about. Who cares whether they know private information about me as long as they don't use it against me. They can collect as much as possible about me if it helps with the national security. I am willing to cooperate. What I worry about is its secrecy and inefficiency... The secrecy of intelligence agencies makes it impossible to evaluate their activity and since they can't be monitored properly the problem of inefficiency can't be resolved. It's a vicious cycle in the intelligence community. Like democrats and republicans, people in the community fight for their agencies and pay checks...

[JKane]

I fear this isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to what the NSA has been up to *in America* since 9/11.

[Guest hitoallusa]

If you go to PBS Nova or YouTube find Spy Factory... It's a well made documentary that deals mainly about NSA... There is part I like a lot in that episode.

[Guest Hoover42]

Well this kind of intelligence acitivity, I don't fear or worry about. Who cares whether they know private information about me as long as they don't use it against me. They can collect as much as possible about me if it helps with the national security. I am willing to cooperate.

It doesn't matter if you have nothing to hide. It goes far beyond that.

1. You can't assume they won't use ANY information they find against you whether or not you've broken any laws

2. You may think you're as pure as the driven snow, but their definition of pure can change at any time without your knowlege--once they have the surveillance they will use it forever and for any reason.

3. You can't assume the information they have is accurate--you may get blamed for something that is not your fault

4. You can't assume the information will be properly interpreted--they may see you at a certain intersection more than once and decide you're dealing drugs because there's a crack house on the corner.

5. You can't assume that their decisions will always be ethical. Imagine if Hitler had our surveillance capability in the '30s.

6. You will never know what information they've accumulated about you and you will never have an opportunity to correct mistakes in that information.

Is this really a future you want?

[MsGuy]

Hito, if I know anything about human nature it's that empowering folks to behave badly under circumstances that result in little kickback to themselves personally, more often than not results in bad behavior

[Guest hitoallusa]

In a PBS Nova document, the spy factory, it shows that intelligence community do struggle with a lot of pieces of information they gather and can't coordinate well with other agencies. It needs to be addressed and its not easy as you can see in the book, the legacy of ashes...

We allow doctors to know our family history and give them our personal information to diagnosis and treat us. We are not afraid of doctors for their activity. I hope that the intelligence workers become and accepted trained professionals whose interest are protecting citizens from from attacks and disasters. As long as information are gathered and handled properly only to protect people, what is the harm?

I believe the technological advance will help bring close to an ideal situation. The next generation of computers, quantum computers, will solve one problem of the intelligence community- the problem of handling a vast amount of information efficiently. Once they can do that effectively they will not invade one's privacy too much and only eavesdrop on those who can be potential harm.

The intelligence community needs to be more transparent and more elected representatives serve on its oversight committee, of course.

A new system needs to be set up I believe and only way to do that was make its activity transparent. The problem is how can you make something transparent that needs to be kept secret. The Hollywood movies don't help either. They make intelligence officers a super hero and put things out of proportion. If they were that good then it would not have taken that long to find Osma Bin Laden...