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USACM’s take on Total Info Awareness (2003)

January 25th, 2003
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Perhaps you’ve heard of TIA: the Department of Defense’s Total Information Awareness, a plan to gather all available information, from database everywhere, about every person in the U.S., ostensibly to counter “terrorism through prevention.” Heh. More like “government as a terrorist organization” these days, against their own citizenry.

The USACM, the public policy group of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM, a member-based professional organization), has written a great letter with an offer to help:

Because of serious security, privacy, economic, and personal risks associated with the development of a vast database surveillance system, we recommend a rigorous, independent review of these aspects of TIA. Such a review should include an examination of the technical feasibility and practical reality of the entire program. USACM would be pleased to assist in such an effort.

A good outline of why we should be worried about this Orwellian plan.

Coaching moment: Sometimes the government is doing the surveillance. Once it starts, it’s hard to go back. Note that this article was from 2003. What do you think the government knows about you? Can you correct information if it is wrong? Why might you want to?

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They will track you down like the lowly… (2003)

January 24th, 2003
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A lot of coverage on the court’s order that Verizon to hand over a subscriber’s name–someone who had made some music files available over a file sharing network. I like Wired’s coverage:

“The court should not open the door for anyone who makes a mere allegation of copyright infringement to gain complete access to private subscriber information without due process of law,” said Mike Lamb, AT&T’s chief privacy officer, in a statement.

“The statute at issue requires ISPs to disclose the identity of subscribers expeditiously in response to a subpoena issued by a court clerk,” he added. “Such extraordinary disclosure obligations should be construed narrowly to afford subscribers the opportunity to challenge the requested disclosure.” …

“This is not a debate about privacy, it’s about piracy and the 2.6 billion illegal downloads each month,” the spokesman said. “To suggest that an Internet user’s privacy is more at risk because of this decision is a red herring. Verizon never argued it in the case and there is no First Amendment protection for committing a federal crime.”

Framing the debate as privacy vs. piracy helps illustrate that it’s all about who’s in control.

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