I like doing Science Friday, but I love it when it intersects with the issue that is my personal favorite. Okay... second favorite: Civil liberties.
Honestly, there's so much going on right now with regard to our rights as citizens that I barely know where to start. I'll cover the first topic here, and a few more late-night tonight.
Emerging "Surveillance-Industrial Complex" Is Turbo-Charging Government Monitoring, ACLU Warns in New Report
On August 9th (yes, a million blog-years ago) the ACLU (donate now!) issued a press release and a report detailing the government's use of private industry and individuals to quietly gather the information it wouldn't have the right to gather on its own. Here is a snippet of the press release, including a link to the report.
NEW YORK - The government is rapidly increasing its ability to monitor average Americans by tapping into the growing amount of consumer data being collected by the private sector, according to a major report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union.
"The U.S. security establishment is reaching deeper and deeper into our private lives by forcing the corporate sector to inform on the activities of individuals," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "The government has always recruited informers to help convict criminals, but today that recruitment is being computerized, automated, and used against innocent individuals on a massive scale that is unprecedented in the history of our nation."
The release of the 38-page report, entitled "The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society," marks the launch of the ACLU's Surveillance Campaign, which is designed to regain consumers' personal privacy rights by mobilizing people to contact prominent companies - such as drugstore chains, insurance companies and retailers - to ask them to take a "no-spy pledge" to defend their customers' privacy against government intrusion. A list of suggested companies for consumers to contact is available online at http://www.aclu.org/privatize.
Damn. Do you suppose they know how much lube I bought in preparation for my trip to NYC? (I don't know what it's for, but a Kossack emailed me and told me to bring a bunch.)
Please go and read the full press release, or go directly to the report using the link in the text above. (This pizza delivery video is scary-funny as well.)
Continued at the click of a mouse...
Are private firms helping Big Brother too much?
Today, MSNBC has a related story in their science section... hence the tenuous connection to Science Friday.
By Bob Sullivan
Technology correspondent
MSNBC
In May 2002, the Professional Association of Diving Instructors voluntarily provided the FBI with a disk containing the names, addresses and other personal information of about 2 million people, nearly every U.S. citizen who had learned to scuba dive in the previous three years. That's just one of the myriad ways federal law enforcement agencies are quietly recruiting private industry and private citizens as de facto agents in the war on terror, according to a report recently issued by the ACLU called The Surveillance-Industrial Complex. The study paints a picture of an unofficial government policy to enlist companies and citizens in the building of massive databases aimed at monitoring people in the United States.
----snip----
Many consumers might not think when they sign up for something as innocuous as scuba lessons that their personal data may ultimately end up in the hands of federal investigators -- particularly if the company involved promises in its privacy policy to keep the data private. But that's exactly what happened in 2002 when JetBlue Airlines gave some 5 million passenger records to a database firm named Acxiom, which was preparing an anti-terrorism product for the government.
Disclosure of that release was followed by admissions from other airlines, leading to public outcry over the voluntary release of data by private firms to the government. But many other such public-private partnerships exist, the ACLU says. ChoicePoint Inc., known as the data provider for criminal background checks, now has a software product called Homeland Tracker, designed to help companies check individuals against government terrorist watch lists.
"For a lot of these companies, the business model surrounds the sale of information to the government," said Chris Hoofnagle of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. He recently wrote a law review article called "Big Brother's Little Helper," which explores much the same theme as the ACLU's report. The databases being compiled by companies like ChoicePoint, and sold to the government -- no court order required -- offer "one-stop mind-boggling power," his article says.
So how do we stop this sort of data-mining? I'd like to say that voting Kerry in would stop it, but I'm not gonna plan on it. As you read above, ACLU recommends contacting the companies that you deal with (insurance companies, drug stores, retailers... AdultDVDEmpire for sure) and asking them to take the No-Spy Pledge. This sounds vaguely like pissing into a hurricane, but it's better than nothing. If enough of us do it... who knows?
Stay safe, but stay free.
peace