Is Tech a Dead Issue for Next Prez?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brock N Meeks <bmeeks () cox net>
Date: September 29, 2008 4:53:19 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Is Tech a Dead Issue for Next Prez?


The day, no the moment, no... the instant that the next President is  
recognized as the "winner" he is sure to feel like he's being hit with  
a fire hose of MOST URGENT issues.  War, financial crisis and the fate  
of a nation hanging in the balance; hell, that sounds like the outline  
of a paperback spy novel... but in fact it is (what will likely be  
left of) post-election Blue and Red states.

While fear, uncertainty and doubt are the headline grabbers, a host of  
other issues wait  like lions in the tall grass ready to ambush policy  
makers of all stripe.  Not the least of these are the challenges and  
assaults on technology and civil liberties.

That's why it's critical to understand that one of the biggest  
mistakes a new administration might make in its first 100 days would  
be to blow off the impact technology has had on the privacy of our  
communications and the striking need to update the law accordingly.   
If the President fails to act early in his first term he will miss a  
window of opportunity that won't soon reopen.

Hi-Tech Discrimination
===============
The revolutionary growth of digital storage capacity and online  
communications services means that more and more of our lives are  
spent online. We send email through web-based services and have  
growing opportunities to store our calendars, address books and the  
like with online service providers. Increasingly, sensitive  
information that used to reside on in our desks, on our desktops or  
stored on our home computers is shared with or stored by third parties  
who then convey it to others.

And when it does reside with third parties, our information loses much  
of the Fourth Amendment protection that it enjoyed when it was stored  
in your home digitally or on paper. For example, the government can  
easily require your web-based service provider to turn over an email  
message that you’ve saved for more than six months on your Gmail or  
Hotmail account—any web-based email account for that matter. The  
government does not have to prove to a judge that it has strong  
evidence – probable cause – that the message is relevant to criminal  
activity. To get that very same message saved on your desktop  
computer, the government would have to make that probable cause showing.

In other words, current law discriminates against web-based  
applications in terms of the privacy they afford. This discrimination  
could put Internet technologies at a competitive disadvantage as  
consumers grow concerned about how private their information really  
is. This is bad for business, bad for consumers, and bad for privacy,  
and therefore important for the next President to address early on.

[snip]

More on the technology and security issues the next administration  
should focus on here: http://poprl.com/1Wb



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