DEA Bribes Obtained Amtrak Passenger Information

Image: wnyc.org

According to a story in today's Washington Post, DEA agents spent nearly two decades illegally obtaining personal information about Amtrak passengers. The info sweep included credit card information, passport numbers, dates of birth, and emergency contact names. In exchange, the DEA paid their Amtrak source over three-quarter of a million dollars. How the arrangement reached the light of day was not revealed in the Post article. The irony is that the information the DEA wanted could have easily been obtained via legal means. Ah, but why do things the easy way?

Court Nixes Feds Request to Keep NSA Phone Records Longer Than Five Years

Federal judge Reggie Walton

In a story that slipped under the radar during SXSW, the Ukraine crisis, and the Malaysian Airlines plane disaster, a federal judge ruled that the NSA could not keep phone records longer than five years. According to an article in theverge.com, the judge in charge of NSA oversight asserted that privacy protections trumped the government's contention that five years just wasn't enough time to hold gathered data for evidentiary purposes.

The ruling jurist, Reggie Walton, is a George W. Bush appointee. The judge has tended to see the merits of protecting individual privacy versus sweeping, secret government encroachment of it.

Google Settles Over Unauthorized Cookies in Safari Browser

One irony of the Snowden-NSA revelations is how quickly Silicon Valley's data mining titans professed shock over the federal snoopers' lies. It's instructive to recall that the Valley's green giants (as in the color of money) have done their fair share of unauthorized collection of personal data. Today's edition of siliconvalley.com included an Associated Press story noting Google's quiet settlement of litigation alleging that the Mountain Valley firm conducted unwelcome data collection on Apple's Safari browser. This activity was in violation of Apple policy and Google's own statements of innocence in the matter. Google later claimed its actions were "inadvertent."

Uh-huh. This is the same company whose Google Maps crews routinely gathered data without permission. Meanwhile, Google has screamed and yelled about the NSA's volte-face on the feds' data mining. Googlers complained about how the NSA violated understandings and trust.

The question to ask Silicon Valley's repeat violators of personal privacy is the following one: how does it feel to be violated?

FISA Court's Chief Judge: I'm Not a Rubber Stamp

The United States' FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) institution is an American judicial anomaly. Its principal role is to evaluate and rule on federal government requests to snoop on "suspected" terrorists and other clear and present dangers to this country.  The case, the evidence, and the rulings are secret. Only Department of Justice attorneys may present a case; no other attorney or representative is permitted. Judging from recent revelations about the American surveillance state, it seemed FISA played the matador to the Justice Department's bull.

Not so, claimed FISA's presiding judge Reggie B. Walton, as The Washington Post reported in today's online edition. In a letter Walton sent to Senate Judiciary Committee members Patrick Leahy (D) and Charles Grassley (R), he asserted FISA sent nearly one in four requests back to the Justice Department for "substantive changes." (For more on Walton's judicial background, you should explore his official biography, posted on the US District Court for the District of Columbia's website.)

FISA judge Reggie B. Walton

That left three of four either requiring a lower degree of modification or no change at all. That means the DOJ legal team is batting .750 on its requests to spy on alleged political bad actors. Included in that .750 average is a FISA ruling approving the sweeping collection of Americans' phone records. That was the haystack, as the NSA characterized the massive data grab, security teams needed to create in order to find a terrorist needle. If that notion seemed like a good idea to a FISA judge, one wonders about the content or intent of the rejected DOJ motions.

Meanwhile, a declassified 2009 ruling sheds some light on the surveillance state's assault on privacy. As the Post story noted:

...Walton scolded the government for repeated violations of court orders and falsely assuring the court it was following required steps to protect Americans' privacy.

General Keith Alexander

Privacy procedures "have been so frequently and systematically violated that it can be fairly said that this critical element of the overall [phone records] regime has never fully functioned effectively," Walton wrote. He added that the explanation of the misunderstanding of the court's order by Gen. Keith Alexander, NSA's director, "strains credulity."

NSA Chief Rips Media's Coverage of Surveillance Flaps

General Keith Alexander
(Image: abcnews.go.com)

NSA boss General Keith Alexander didn't get the memo about the federal government's shutdown. He's still on duty; I salute him for that action (no pun intended). America's Chief Surveillance Officer (CSO) did find time today to deliver a public speech to the Telecommunications Industry Association about the media's coverage of recent revelations about the NSA's surveillance efforts. The story appeared in today's online editions of The Washington Post.

His address to the collected telecom insiders repeated the NSA mantra about "damage" to the nation's security and how the media mismanaged reporting the spy agency's virtuous labors on behalf of freedom everywhere. Alexander, who also runs the military's Cyber Command, said somehow the nation would manage despite Edward Snowden's information about the extent of NSA snooping on ordinary American citizens. He noted l'affaire Snowden caused an erosion of trust, notably in the very industries the NSA has assiduously courted and, at times, strong armed. That's a fair point.

NYPD Surveillance Camera

However, Alexander did not allude to the increasing mistrust some Americans have toward allegedly "benign" surveillance. Then again, America's CSO doesn't have a profound desire for informed citizens to ponder what the NSA has wrought. He must have the insiders to buy into the "needs" of the surveillance state. He certainly does not want the extent of America's military-technology complex openly considered by a thoughtful electorate. Those industrial-governmental relationships were the heart of Snowden's revelations. I doubt General Alexander will be making any speeches on that topic in the near future.

NYPD Flyer Urges Consumers Upload Apple's iOS 7

Apple's new operating system for its iPhones and iPads has some privacy advocates anxious. The iOS 7 system includes a fingerprint identification tool which would allow you-know-who to rather easily establish identity, a phone number, and Internet information. Once you check the box that says "I have read and agree...," you're one step closer to total identity nudity.

The iOS 7 also contains an "Activation Lock" feature which offers much stronger security in the event of theft or loss. Law enforcement has even gotten into the promotion game, with the New York Police Department handing out flyers touting the Activation Lock's and operating system's benefits, according to a post in zerohedge.com.

Specifically, the NYPD, along with the Empire State's attorney general, have touted the advanced security the "Activation Lock" offers consumers. Unfortunately, they have not invented a way to halt shameless data mining (thank you, location devices) of phone users' preferences as they walk along city streets. That's theft of a different sort, and a privacy loophole far more lucrative than a purloined cell phone could hope to provide.

Alberto Moravia, Italian Fascism, and the NSA Security State

Alberto Moravia
(Image: raistoria.rai.it)

Lately, I've been reading about the life and work of the 20th century Italian novelist Alberto Moravia. His novels and short stories, often exploring middle-class puzzlement or conformism in the face of Fascism, seem eerily connected to today's political and social situation in the United States. Two years ago, The New York Times' Rachel Donadio wrote a telling piece about Moravia's work and Silvio Berlusconi. As with the United States under the NSA shadow, the Berlusconi regime had taken, as Donadio noted, "all the oxygen out of the room."

Donadio cites a passage from Moravia's Two Friends, in which a character "attributes his lack of conviction -- about his career, his lover, his politics -- to his formation under Fascism." To quote Moravia's work, it had

wormed its way into his blood, not in the form of political allegiance, but rather as a kind of torpor and moral passivity, like a poison that slowly intoxicates and weakens the body. He was confronted once again with his feeling of impotence, but this time it not only affected his personal life but encompassed the destiny of the nation and humanity as a whole.

Torpor and moral passivity? Sounds like the American public's response to the devaluation of personal privacy, brought to you by the Feds and the military-technological complex.

Moravia's books remain in print. Many are translated into American English. The works of the author who wrote The Conformist remain strong and vital today. Can we say the same about our own society?

FTC Member's "Reclaim Your Name" Campaign

Julie Brill
(Image: law.columbia.edu)

FTC member Julie Brill has shown plenty of chutzpah in her efforts to start a campaign on behalf of an individual's right to their own data. It's been a lonely fight, with very powerful forces aligned to stop any such movement in its tracks. The New York Times showed Ms. Brill a little love by running a brief story about her efforts on behalf of citizens and privacy rights.

Data rights are a dicey issue that the tech world, the "wired" media, and online-dependent businesses really doesn't like to discuss. Brill deserves credit for trying to shine a light on practices many enterprises would prefer kept in the shadows and its suckers in the dark.

Facebook Opens Server Farm in Sweden

Facebook's server farm in Sweden
(photo: facebook.com)

With an exquisitely ironic sense of timing, Facebook today began processing data from a new server farm outside the United States. The opening comes on the heels of Facebook's first public meeting for its equity shareholders, and revelations suggesting Facebook cooperated in the American security state's data sweeps. (How many "likes" did the NSA get today, eh?)

According to a story in siliconvalley.com, Facebook's Swedish server farm is located on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Mark Zuckerberg's version of Green Acres happens to be near major hydroelectric dams, an essential need for energy-hungry servers. Sweden's northern reaches also happen to be chilly, and high performance servers require constant, cool temperatures to run at maximum efficiency.

The siliconvalley.com piece noted some Swedes questioning their Facebook data's privacy. European laws tend to be far more restrictive than American regulations regarding data privacy. The Swedes may have reason to worry. One critic claimed that the data Facebook collects in Sweden is "mirrored" on US-based servers. Thanks to Edward Snowden, we have a more definitive sense of just how private American data is.

ACLU's Nicole Ozer Promotes Data Privacy Rights In Heart of Silicon Valley

While tech's high priests are proudly, even arrogantly, individualistic, they share common ground on the subject of data. The basic formula is "you have data and we're taking it." Notions such as transparency, open choice, and respect for privacy frequently land on Silicon Valley's version of the cutting room floor. The self-assured high priests frequently give privacy advocates the bum's rush, pay them lip service, or simply ignore them.

Nicole Ozer
(Photo: 365.rscconference.com)

However, there are some hardy souls who dare speak against Silicon Valley's presumptuous usurpation of privacy. One of them is Nicole Ozer, the technology and civil liberties policy director for the ACLU's Northern California branch. An interesting, thoughtful, and too brief interview with her appeared in today's siliconvalley.com. Ozer summed up the privacy contretemps with Silicon Valley rather neatly: "The companies know what they're collecting, what they're using it for, how long they're retaining it for, and who they're sharing it with -- and consumers don't."

Silicon Valley Muscling Proposed Internet Privacy Legislation

One of Silicon Valley's dicier dichotomies is to trumpet the value of open access to information, while relentlessly guarding their own corporate info from the public. The third rail for this contradiction is data mining. A current proposal in the California State Assembly calls for Internet firms to reveal to the state's consumers how their personal information is being used. This bill gets to the heart of data mining's profound invasion of individual privacy for unshared commercial gain.

Unsurprisingly, some of the Valley's heavy hitters, through the vehicle of a lobbying organization, is fighting the legislation tooth and nail. According to a story in siliconvalley.com, the tech industry is muscling the State Assembly to have consideration on the bill delayed, forgotten, killed.

The legislation that has aroused the ire of Santa Clara County's tech giants (and, yes, Microsoft) is AB1291.

US Senators Cite Drone Threat to Privacy

Interior of a drone

A bipartisan group of US senators expressed profound concern today that the wide-open, domestic use of drones signifies a potentially dangerous erosion of privacy rights.

According to an article in today's Los Angeles Times, "So far, no privacy policy defines how long government authorities may keep video and other data collected by the drones, how it can be used or whether it can be shared with other government agencies or the public."

Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) expressed their deep concern over unregulated drone activity and its impact on privacy. Their hearings on this issue have assumed greater urgency as the drone industry has undertaken something of a full-court press to sell its products in the US market. Their potential clients extend well beyond natural surveillance constituencies, such as law enforcement agencies. As the LA Times report noted, "Congress has mandated the FAA to open U.S. airspace to commercial drone traffic by September 2015..."

Real estate firms, "data aggregators," and traffic reporting services are among those enterprise categories keenly interested in obtaining the Sons of Predator. Unstated are the darker uses of drones, such as private investigation businesses and tabloid publications, which would presumably be legal. Would the First Amendment cover their activities?

Feds Extend Spy Probes Into Citizens' Banking Data

For some time, the privacy rights of Americans has been depicted as a "fringe" issue. Its strongest advocates have tended to be connected to the Tea Party or to the Occupy movement. The Occupy crowd found out just how quickly their privacy wasn't worth a damn. What really mattered was social control and the perpetuation of a fraudulent sense of class harmony, notably in the supposedly liberal bastion of New York City.

The Obama Administration has been something less than progressive regarding privacy rights. The federal government's ambivalence comes across in matters of "national security," the boundaries of which remain as ill-defined as the more remote areas of the Mexico-US border. The basic notion appears to be that just about anything in one's personal life is fair game to investigate, collect, and keep indefinitely. Anything labeled "national security" trumps due process.

This disturbing trend is only gathering momentum. A Reuters story picked up (ironically) in today's Chicago Tribune claims the Obama Administration is creating a plan that would allow US spy agencies "full access to a massive database that contains financial data on American citizens and others who bank in the country..."

The Big Brotherish scheme is unsurprisingly cloaked in national security imperatives. The idea is to follow the money and snag the forces of evil. This is hardly a novel idea. The question isn't whether the proposed snooping will be effective; the doubt stems from the plan's erosion of fundamental democratic rights. Relying on a government's good intentions, from those who think they know what's best, is a dangerous road for a democracy to travel.