Re: Intel Official: Expect Less Privacy
jim wrote:
> Intel Official: Expect Less Privacy
>
> WASHINGTON (AP) -- As Congress debates new rules for government
> eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in
> the United States changed their definition of privacy.
>
> Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the
> principal
> deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that
> government and businesses properly safeguard people's private
> communications and financial information.
>
> Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the
> Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
>
> Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer to allow the
> government to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission,
> so long as one end of the conversation was reasonably believed to be
> located outside the U.S.
>
> The original law required a court order for any surveillance
> conducted
> on U.S. soil, to protect Americans' privacy. The White House argued that
> the law was obstructing intelligence gathering because, as technology has
> changed, a growing amount of foreign communications passes through
> U.S.-based channels.
>
> The most contentious issue in the new legislation is whether to
> shield
> telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for allegedly giving the
> government access to people's private e-mails and phone calls without a
> FISA court order between 2001 and 2007.
>
> Some lawmakers, including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
> appear reluctant to grant immunity. Suits might be the only way to
> determine how far the government has burrowed into people's privacy
> without court permission.
>
> The committee is expected to decide this week whether its version of
> the bill will protect telecommunications companies. About 40 wiretapping
> suits are pending.
>
> The central witness in a California lawsuit against AT&T says the
> government is vacuuming up billions of e-mails and phone calls as they
> pass through an AT&T switching station in San Francisco.
>
> Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, helped connect a device in
> 2003
> that he says diverted and copied onto a government supercomputer every
> call, e-mail, and Internet site access on AT&T lines.
>
> The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the class-action
> suit,
> claims there are as many as 20 such sites in the U.S.
>
> The White House has promised to veto any bill that does not grant
> immunity from suits such as this one.
>
> Congressional leaders hope to finish the bill by Thanksgiving. It
> would replace the FISA update enacted in August that privacy groups and
> civil libertarians say allows the government to read Americans' e-mails
> and listen to their phone calls without court oversight.
>
> Kerr said at an October intelligence conference in San Antonio that
> he
> finds concerns that the government may be listening in odd when people are
> "perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an (Internet service
> provider) who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the
> United States to handle their data."
>
> He noted that government employees face up to five years in prison
> and
> $100,000 in fines if convicted of misusing private information.
>
> Millions of people in this country - particularly young people -
> already have surrendered anonymity to social networking sites such as
> MySpace and Facebook, and to Internet commerce. These sites reveal to the
> public, government and corporations what was once closely guarded
> information, like personal statistics and credit card numbers.
>
> "Those two generations younger than we are have a very different
> idea
> of what is essential privacy, what they would wish to protect about their
> lives and affairs. And so, it's not for us to inflict one size fits all,"
> said Kerr, 68. "Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won. Anyone
> that's typed in their name on Google understands that."
>
> "Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on
> privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public
> safety," Kerr said. "I think all of us have to really take stock of what
> we already are willing to give up, in terms of anonymity, but (also) what
> safeguards we want in place to be sure that giving that doesn't empty our
> bank account or do something equally bad elsewhere."
>
> Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier
> Foundation, an advocacy group that defends online free speech, privacy and
> intellectual property rights, said Kerr's argument ignores both privacy
> laws and American history.
>
> "Anonymity has been important since the Federalist Papers were
> written
> under pseudonyms," Opsahl said. "The government has tremendous power: the
> police power, the ability to arrest, to detain, to take away rights. Tying
> together that someone has spoken out on an issue with their identity is a
> far more dangerous thing if it is the government that is trying to tie it
> together."
>
> Opsahl also said Kerr ignores the distinction between sacrificing
> protection from an intrusive government and voluntarily disclosing
> information in exchange for a service.
>
> "There is something fundamentally different from the government
> having
> information about you than private parties," he said. "We shouldn't have
> to give people the choice between taking advantage of modern communication
> tools and sacrificing their privacy."
>
> "It's just another 'trust us, we're the government,'" he said.
>
>
> (Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
>
> http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=106257
All I care about is this... PLEASE don't base this on windows.... PLEASE!
--
Jerry McBride (jmcbride@mail-on.us)