Big Business Becoming Big Brother

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: August 9, 2004 12:34:56 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Big Business Becoming Big Brother
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com



[Note:  This item comes from reader Randy Burge.  DLH]

From: Randy Burge <burge () proactive to>
Date: August 9, 2004 8:18:51 AM PDT
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () dandin com>
Subject: Big Business Becoming Big Brother

<http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,64492,00.html>

Big Business Becoming Big Brother 

By Kim Zetter  |   Page 1 of 2

02:00 AM Aug. 09, 2004 PT
The government is increasingly using corporations to do its surveillance
work, allowing it to get around restrictions that protect the privacy 
and
civil liberties of Americans, according to a report released Monday by 
the
American Civil Liberties Union, an organization that works to protect 
civil
liberties.
Data aggregators -- companies that aggregate information from numerous
private and public databases -- and private companies that collect
information about their customers are increasingly giving or selling 
data to
the government to augment its surveillance capabilities and help it 
track
the activities of people.



Because laws that restrict government data collection don't apply to 
private
industry, the government is able to bypass restrictions on domestic
surveillance. Congress needs to close such loopholes, the ACLU said, 
before
the exchange of information gets out of hand.

"Americans would really be shocked to discover the extent of the 
practices
that are now common in both industry and government," said the ACLU's 
Jay
Stanley, author of the report. "Industry and government know that, so 
they
have a strong incentive to not publicize a lot of what's going on."

Last year, JetBlue Airways acknowledged that it secretly gave defense
contractor Torch Concepts 5 million passenger itineraries for a 
government
project on passenger profiling without the consent of the passengers. 
The
contractor augmented the data with passengers' Social Security numbers,
income information and other personal data to test the feasibility of a
screening system called CAPPS II. That project was slated to launch 
later
this year until the government scrapped it. Other airlines also 
contributed
data to the project.

Information about the data-sharing project came to light only by 
accident.
Critics like Stanley say there are many other government projects like 
this
that are proceeding in secret.

The ACLU released the Surveillance-Industrial Complex report in 
conjunction
with a new website designed to educate the public about how information
collected from them is being used.

The report listed three ways in which government agencies obtain data 
from
the private sector: by purchasing the data, by obtaining a court order 
or
simply by asking for it. Corporations freely share information with
government agencies because they don't want to appear to be unpatriotic,
they hope to obtain future lucrative Homeland Security contracts with 
the
government or they fear increased government scrutiny of their business
practices if they don't share.

But corporations aren't the only ones giving private data to the 
government..
In 2002, the Professional Association of Diving Instructors voluntarily 
gave
the FBI the names and addresses of some 2 million people who had studied
scuba diving in previous years. And a 2002 survey found that nearly 200
colleges and universities gave the FBI information about students. Most 
of
these institutions provided the information voluntarily without having
received a subpoena.

Collaborative surveillance between government and the private sector is 
not
new. For three decades during the Cold War, for example, telegraph 
companies
like Western Union, RCA Global and International Telephone and Telegraph
gave the National Security Agency, or NSA, all cables that went to or 
from
the United States. Operation Shamrock, which ran from 1945 to 1975, 
helped
the NSA compile 75,000 files on individuals and organizations, many of 
them
involved in peace movements and civil disobedience.

These days, the increasing amount of electronic data that is collected 
and
stored, along with developments in software technology, make it easy 
for the
government to sort through mounds of data quickly to profile individuals
through their connections and activities.

Although the Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits the government from keeping
dossiers on Americans unless they are the specific target of an
investigation, the government circumvents the legislation by 
piggybacking on
private-sector data collection.

Corporations are not subject to congressional oversight or Freedom of
Information Act requests -- two methods for monitoring government 
activities
and exposing abuses. And no laws prevent companies from voluntarily 
sharing
most data with the government.

"The government is increasingly ... turning to private companies, which 
are
not subject to the law, and buying or compelling the transfer of private
data that it could not collect itself," the report states.
<snip>

 



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