Two on What was in the water at * (read both, who knows we may even agree :-) djf

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Subject: RE: [Politech] Open letter on security, civil liberties from
Farber, Dyson, Lemmey [priv]
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 11:00:22 -0400
From: Jim Harper - Privacilla.org <jim.harper () privacilla org>
Reply-To: <jim.harper () privacilla org>
Organization: Privacilla.org
To: 'Declan McCullagh' <declan () well com>

Declan:

I want to know what was in the water at the meetings of this Markle
Foundation Task Force.  It seems that every participant came out of
there intoning about 1) the need for this 'trusted' information network;
and 2) the suitability of various rules and boards for controlling a new
government database (albeit a networked one) which will sweep in
potentially unlimited data about all Americans' activities.

Let's talk about how much this thing is like Total Information
Awareness.  Section 206 of the Senate-passed intelligence reform bill
makes a few casual references to use of private-sector data in this
information 'environment'. (An amendment changed the name of this
project from "network" to "environment" - to further obscure what's
going on, to bring on support from confused greens, or both.)

If you want to know what is actually envisioned, look at the Markle Task
Force's surveillance roadmap at Appendix H
http://www.markletaskforce.org/reports/Report2_Part3.pdf (page 80 of the
.pdf / 150 of the document itself): divorce papers, calling card logs,
page and text messages, credit card applications, academic records,
insurance policies and claims, Web site search histories, licenses of
every kind, cable viewing records, prescriptions.  I'm just
cherry-picking.  The list goes on and on.

And here are Markle-produced matrices of the laws that need amending so
the government surveillance system can lawfully get full access to the
data.  That is, if the "national security letter" provision of the
Patriot Act doesn't survive.
http://www.markletaskforce.org/privacyrules.html

So let's call a spade a spade.  This is Total Information Awareness,
rebranded, with the corners smoothed down.

1) Would it work?/Do we need it? That's beyond the pay-grade of all but
a seer.  I strongly believe that it would cost too much in civil
liberties, privacy, autonomy, and everything else we take so much pride
in enjoying as Americans.

These surveillance programs distract from the real efforts that will
suppress terror: human intelligence, hardening infrastructure against
likely tools and methods of attack, and the promotion of liberty,
literacy, and commerce in countries where terrorist ideologies have
taken root.

2) 'Oh, but there are safeguards.' This is what really galls me.

As a student of governments and government behavior, I will tell you
what the authors of this open letter apparently don't get: Bureaucracies
seek to maximize their budgets, and do so by maximizing their power and
influence.

In translation: rules, protocols, and oversight boards will be
impediments to the institutional interests of those operating this
surveillance system, including not only the law enforcement/national
security bureaucrats, but also the growing number of companies in the
surveillance-industrial complex.  They will work quietly and diligently
over years to dismantle the limits placed on them, making a mockery of
the 'careful balance' supposedly struck by the Markle Surveillance
Project.

If this goes forward, it will be a clear victory for the surveillance
state and a clear loss for freedom. I don't doubt the good faith of the
authors of this open letter. I doubt their savvy.

Where the heck in the Fourth Amendment does it say "General warrants
shall issue if the Markle Foundation Task Force says it's OK"? That's
where this thing goes if it passes.

Jim



Jim Harper
Editor
Privacilla.org
and
Director of Information Policy Studies
The Cato Institute

<http://www.politechbot.com/2004/10/14/what-was-in/>

        From:     dave () farber net
        Subject:        Stewart Baker: What's in the water at Cato?   [Politech]
        Date:   October 21, 2004 7:43:13 AM EDT

tu Baker was a member of the Markle task force:
http://www.markletaskforce.org/ --Declan]


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: What's in the water at Cato?
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 19:29:04 -0400
From: sbaker () steptoe com <sbaker () steptoe com>
To: 'Declan McCullagh' <declan () well com>
CC: Albertazzie, Sally <SAlbertazzie () steptoe com>

Declan,

Jim Harper seems to have slept through September 11.  In the weeks 
before
the attacks, we identified two of the hijackers as al-Qaeda killers, 
knew
they were in the country, but couldn't find them -- even though they had
drivers licenses, phones, etc., in their own names.  And, until we have 
a
method for rapidly checking private databases for suspects, we still 
won't
be able to find them.

Evidently that's fine with Jim.  He'd rather rely on three other 
techniques,
which seem to be teaching Arab kids to read, huddling behind more and 
higher
blast walls, and using something called "human intelligence" -- unaided 
by
any technical advances made during Steve Jobs's lifetime.

Evidently recognizing that nobody else is likely to feel safer under the
Harper Three-Point Plan, he also trashes the report by misstating its
impact.  His claim that dozens of laws will have to be amended is flat
wrong.  There is already plenty of legal authority for gathering 
information
from private sources.  The charts simply set forth existing law, without
proposing to water down any of them.  In fact, the safeguards 
recommended by
the Markle task force actually add restraints to the government's 
current
capabilities (a fact that gave me real pause when I was part of the task
force).

At bottom, the task force recommends that the government use -- with
safeguards -- capabilities that the private sector already uses with
enthusiasm.  If Sprint can already tell that Messrs Atta and al-Hazmi 
make a
lot of phone calls to each other and to Afghanistan, and can use the
information to offer them cheap long-distance, most of us would like our
government to use the same information to keep our families alive.

Stewart Baker

<http://www.politechbot.com/2004/10/18/whats-in-the/>



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