Chapter 6 Privacy and the Government

Public records

-Maintained by government agencies Birth certificates Marriage licenses Motor vehicle records Criminal records Deeds and mortgages -Non-government such as telephone books

Financial Services Modernization Act

1. (also called the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999) contains dozens of provisions related to how financial institutions do business. 2. One of the major provisions of the law allows the creation of "financial supermarkets" offering banking, insurance, and brokerage services. 3. The law also contains some privacy-related provisions. It requires financial institutions to disclose their privacy policies to their customers. ==>When a customer establishes an account, and at least once per year thereafter, the institution must let the customer know the kinds of information it collects and how it uses that information. ==>These notices must contain an opt-out clause that explains to customers how they can request that their confidential information not be revealed to other companies. ==>The law requires financial institutions to develop policies that prevent unauthorized access of their customers' confidential information.

Debate over a National ID Card

1. A national identification card would be more reliable than existing forms of identification. Social Security cards and driver's licenses are too easy to forge. Amodern card could incorporate a photograph as well as a thumbprint or other biometric data. 2. A national identification card could reduce illegal immigration. Requiring employers to check a tamper-proof, forgery-proof national identification card would prevent illegal immigrants from working in the United States. If illegal immigrants couldn't get work, they wouldn't enter the United States in the first place. 3. A national identification card would reduce crime. Currently it's too easy for criminals to mask their true identity. A tamper-proof national identification card would allow police to positively identify the people they apprehend. 4. National identification cards do not undermine democracy. Many democratic countries already use national ID cards, including Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Spain. Opponents of a national identification card suggest these harms may result from its adoption: 1. A national identification card does not guarantee that the apparent identity of an individual is that person's actual identity. --Driver's licenses and passports are supposed to be unique identifiers, but there are many criminals who produce fake driver's licenses and passports. Even a hard-to-forge identification card system may be compromised by insiders. For example, a ring of motor vehicle department employees in Virginia was caught selling fake driver's licenses [75]. 2. It is impossible to create a biometric-based national identification card that is 100 percent accurate. --All known systems suffer from false positives (erroneously reporting that the person does not match the ID) and false negatives (failing to report that the person and ID do not match). Biometric-based systems may still be beaten by determined, technology-savvy criminals [75]. 3. There is no evidence that the institution of a national ID card would lead to a reduction in crime. --In fact, the principal problem faced by police is not the inability to make positive identifications of suspects but the inability to obtain evidence needed for a successful prosecution. 4. A national identification card makes it simpler for government agencies to perform data mining on the activities of its citizens. --According to Peter Neumann and Lauren Weinstein, "The opportunities for overzealous surveillance and serious privacy abuses are almost limitless, as are opportunities for masquerading, identity theft, and draconian social engineering on a grand scale. . . . The road to an Orwellian police state of universal tracking, but actually reduced security, could well be paved with hundreds of millions of such [national identification] cards" 5. While most people may feel they have nothing to fear from a national identification card system since they are law-abiding citizens, even law-abiding people are subject to fraud and the indiscretions and errors of others. --Suppose a teacher, a doctor, or someone else in a position of authority creates a file containing misleading or erroneous information. Files created by people in positions of authority can be difficult to remove [76].

Long-Standing NSA Access to Telephone Records

1. Beginning in 2011, two members of the Intelligence Committee of the US Senate, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Arizona, repeatedly spoke out against domestic spying. 2. In May 2011, Senator Wyden said, "I want to deliver a warning this afternoon: when the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry 3. On June 5, 2013, the British newspaper the Guardian revealed that based on a request from the FBI, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) had ordered Verizon to provide to the National Security Agency on a daily basis records of all of its customers' calls from April 25, 2013, to July 19, 2013 4. (Edward Snowden, a former employee of NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, was responsible for leaking the information to the Guardian.) These call records, also called telephonymetadata, included the date and time of each telephone call, the location of the phone making the call, the duration of the conversation, and "other identifying information.

Operation Shamrock

1. Censorship during World War II ==>all messages entering and leaving the country, meaning US intelligence agencies had access to all telegram traffic ==>Signal Security Agency (predecessor to the National Security Agency) wanted to find a new way to get access to telegram traffic. 2. After war, US asked Western Union, ITT and RCA Communications to voluntarily provide copies of all foreign government telegrams ==>asked them to allow it to make photographic copies of all foreign government telegram traffic that entered, left, or transited the United States 3. National Security Agency (NSA) formed 1952 and continued operation SHAMROCK ==>surveillance operation took a giant leap forward in the 1960s, when the telegram companies converted to computers 4. 1961 - Robert F. Kennedy, new US Attorney General collected information for "watch list" and organized crime ==> convened a meeting with FBI, IRS, Securities, and Exchange to exchange info on mobsters 5. Added persons (US Citizens) and companies doing business with Cuba 6. During the Vietnam War the Johnson and Nixon administration added war protestors including Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Rev Ralph Abernathy, Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, prediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock, folksinger Joan Baez, and actress Jane Fonda ==>In 1969 President Nixon established the White House Task Force on Heroin Suppression. NSA became an active participant on the war on drugs 7. Operation SHAMROCK officially ended in 1975

FBI National Crime Information Center 2000 (NCIC)

1. Collection of databases 2. Supports federal, state and local LEO 3. First established in 1967 4. Originally, 5 databases, about 95k records 5. Stolen autos, stolen license plates, stolen or missing guns, missing persons 6. Currently 7. Currently 39 million records 8. Convicted or wanted persons, criminal histories, fugitives, suspected terrorists, etc. 9. 80,000 LEO's have access 10. 2 million requests per day, about 1 second response time

Title III

1. Congress responded by passing Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. 2. Title III allows a police agency that has obtained a court order to tap a phone for up to 30 days 3. The government continued to argue that in cases of national security, agencies should be able to tap phones without a warrant. 4. In 1972 the Supreme Court rejected this argument when it ruled that the Fourth Amendment forbids warrantless wiretapping, even in cases of national security

Census Records

1. Constitutionally required every 10 years 2. Intended for House of Representative apportionment 3. Census of 1790 had six questions ==>Name of head of household ==>Number of free white males over 16 ==>Number of free white males under 16 ==>Number of free white females ==>All other free persons (by sex and color) ==>Number of slaves 4. 1820 added occupation questions 5. 1840 added school attendance and illiteracy 6. 1850 included taxes, schools, wages, crime, property values 7. 1940 - 5% of population received longer questionnaire 8. Individual information is to be kept confidential 9. During World War I provided names and addresses of young men to military 10. After Pearl Harbor attack, provided information on Japanese-Americans who were later interred

Responses to the Patriot Act

1. Critics of the Patriot Act warn that its provisions give too many powers to the federal government. 2. Critics maintain that other provisions of the Patriot Act undermine the right against unreasonable searches and seizures guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment: ==> The Patriot Act allows police to install Internet pen registers without demonstrating probable cause that the suspect is engaged in a criminal activity. By revealing the URLs of Web sites visited by a suspect, a pen register is a much more powerful surveillance tool on the Internet than it is on a telephone network. .==>The Patriot Act allows for court orders authorizing roving surveillance that do not "particularly describe the place to be searched." .==>It allows law enforcement agencies, under certain circumstances, to search homes and seize evidence without first serving a search warrant. . ==>It allows the FBI to obtain—without showing probable cause—a warrant authorizing the seizure of business, medical, educational, and library records of suspects.

Toll Booth Records Used in Court (302)

1. E-ZPass is an automatic toll collection system used on most toll roads, bridges, and tunnels between Illinois and Maine. 2. Drivers who have installed an E-ZPass tag (an RFID transponder) in their vehicles are able to pass through toll booths without stopping to pay an attendant. 3. Instead, an E-ZPass reader installed in the automated toll lane gets information from the tags of the cars that pass through and deducts the appropriate toll from each driver's account. According to the NYSDOT(New York State Department of Transportation), the system encrypts information from individual tags, deletes the information as soon as the vehicle passes the last reader, and never makes information about individual cars available to the department

NSA WIRETAPPING (283)

1. Early in 2002 the Central Intelligence Agency captured several top al-Qaeda members, along with their personal computers and cell phones. 2. The CIA recovered telephone numbers from these devices and provided them to the NSA 3. President Bush signed a presidential order allowing the NSA to eavesdrop on international telephone calls and international emails initiated by people living inside the United States, without first obtaining a search warrant 4. At any one time, the NSA eavesdropped on up to 500 people inside the United States, including American citizens, permanent residents, and foreigners. 5. The NSA also monitored another 5,000 to 7,000 people living outside the United States at any one time 6. Sources told the New York Times that the surveillance program had foiled at least two al-Qaeda plots: ==>Ohio truck driver Iyman Faris's plan to "bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches" ==>scheme to bomb British pubs and train stations. Civil libertarians and some members of Congress objected to the program

US Legislation Restricting Information Collection 271

1. Employee Polygraph Protection Act 2. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act 3. Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act

Internal Revenue Service Records

1. First national income tax 1862 2. Repealed in 1872 3. Reinstated in 1898 4. Ruled unconstitutional in 1899 5. 16th Amendment 1913 6. Tax form contains much personal information 7. IRS investigates hundreds of employees yearly for misusing information in tax returns 8. 2003 - five consumer groups complained that costumers of H&R Blocks's web based filing received advertising for related products

Covert Government Surveillance

1. History of government information gathering 2. Colonial US under English law had writs of assistance ==>Gave authority to enter house or building and seize prohibited goods ==>Not popular with colonists 3. Fourth Amendment to US Constitution "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." 4. Before the American Revolution, English agents in pursuit of smugglers made use of writs of assistance, which gave them authority to enter any house or building and seize any prohibited goods they could find.

Patriot Act Renewal

1. Most of the provisions of the Patriot Act have now been made permanent, but three provisions of particular concern to civil liberties groupsmust be renewed periodically—the provisions permitting the use of roving wiretaps, the surveillance of "lone wolf" suspects not linked to terrorist groups, and the seizure of business, medical, educational, and library records without showing probable cause.

Police Drones (TOMORROWS QUIZ STARTS HERE)

1. Nine police departments in six different states have begun operating unmanned drones 2. Federal Administration Aviation rules require that drones used by the police weigh no more than 25 pounds, fly no higher than 400 feet, and be flown during daylight within view of the operator 3. Possible uses of the small drones include searching for missing persons, surveying storm damage to isolated neighborhoods, controlling illegal immigration, pursuing fugitive criminals, and performing surveillance at large public gatherings 4. poll conducted by Monmouth University, 66 percent of Americans expressed privacy concerns related to the use of unmanned drones with high-tech cameras by US law enforcement agencies ==> 67 percent opposed the use of drones to issue speeding tickets ==>80 percent supported the use of drones in search-and-rescue missions 5. Florida, Virginia, and Idaho have passed laws prohibiting the use of police drones for crowd surveillance at public events

Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 (EPPA)

1. Prohibits most private employers from using lie detector tests under most situations. 2. An employer may not require or even request a job applicant or employee to take a lie detector test, and an employee who refuses to take a lie detector test cannot suffer any retaliation. 3. Employers who have suffered an economic loss, such as theft, may administer polygraph tests to employees whom they reasonably suspect were involved.

Privacy Act of 1974

1. Prohibits use of secret government databases 2. Requires individual access to correct or amend own information 3. Requires collecting agencies to assure reliability of information 4. Only applies to government databases ==>Far more information is held in private databases, which are excluded. This is an enormous loophole, because government agencies can purchase information from private organizations that have the data they want. 5. Applies only to records indexed by individual's name ==>Records about individuals that are not indexed by name or another identifying number are excluded. 6. Places no one in charge of enforcement ==>Federal agencies have taken it upon themselves to determine which databases they can exempt. The IRS has exempted its database containing the names of taxpayers it is investigating. 7. Allows inter-agency sharing for "routine use" ==>Each agency is able to decide for itself what "routine use" means. The Department of Justice has encouraged agencies to define "routine use" as broadly as possible.

Advanced Imaging Technology Scanners

1. Some AIT scanners use backscatter X-rays to produce a detailed image of the passenger's body, and other scanners use millimeter waves. 2. The TSA began testing AIT systems at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport in 2007 [89]. 3. When the first AIT system was deployed, passengers who failed the primary security screening could choose between the X-ray scan and a traditional pat-down search. 4. In June 2011, the Transportation Security Administration announced that it had already deployed 500 AIT units and would deploy an additional 500 units, enabling it to use this technology to screen 60 percent of all airline passengers in the United States

Fair Credit Reporting Act

1. The Fair Credit Reporting Act, passed in 1970 and revised in 1996, was designed to promote the accuracy and privacy of information used by credit bureaus and other consumer reporting agencies to produce consumer reports. 2. It also ensures that negative information does not haunt a consumer for a lifetime. 3. The three major credit bureaus are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. 4. According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, these credit bureaus may keep negative information about a consumer for a maximum of seven years. 5. There are several exceptions to this rule. The two most important are that information about criminal convictions may be kept indefinitely, and bankruptcy information may be held for 10 years.

Freedom of Information Act

1. The Freedom of Information Act is a law designed to ensure that the public has access to US government records. 2. Signed into law by President Johnson in 1966, it applies only to the executive branch of the federal government, not the legislative or judicial branches. 3. The act carries a presumption that the government will release the requested records. 4. If an agency does not disclose records, it must explain why the information is being withheld.

National Security Letters (288)

1. The Patriot Act expanded the use of National Security Letters, making it easier for the FBI to collect Internet, business, medical, educational, library, and church/mosque/synagogue records. 2. To obtain a search warrant authorizing the collection of records about an individual, the FBI merely needs to issue a National Security Letter stating that the records are related to an ongoing investigation 3. A typical National Security Letter contains a gag order that forbids the letter's recipient from disclosing receipt of the letter. 4. National Security Letters are controversial because, unlike warrants, they do not require the approval of a judge. 5. That means there is no need for the FBI to show probable cause. 6. National Security Letters have prompted several legal challenges by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). 7. As alluded to earlier, the federal government issues about 50,000 National Security Letters every year

History and Role of the Social Security Number

1. The Social Security Act of 1935 established two social insurance programs in the United States: a federal system of old-age benefits to retired persons, and a federal-state system of unemployment insurance 2. The US government initially stated that Social Security numbers (SSNs) would be used solely by the Social Security Administration and not as a national identification card. 3. The first problem with SSNs is that they are not unique.When Social Security cards were first issued by post offices, different post offices accidentally assigned the same SSN to different people 4. A second defect of SSNs is that they are rarely checked. Millions of Social Security cards have been issued to applicants without verifying that the information provided by the applicants is correct. 5. A third defect of SSNs is that they have no error-detecting capability, such as a check digit at the end of the number. A check digit enables computer systems to detect common data entry errors, such as getting one digit wrong or transposing two adjacent digits. 6. President Roosevelt ordered, in 1943, that federal agencies use SSNs as identifiers in new federal databases. In 1961 the Internal Revenue Service began using the SSN as the taxpayer identification number. 7. In 1938 wallet manufacturer E. H. Ferree included sample Social Security cards in one of its products.More than 40,000 people purchasing the wallets from Woolworth stores thought the cards were real and used the sample card's number as their SSN DEFECTS with SSN ==>The first problem with SSNs is that they are not unique ==>A second defect of SSNs is that they are rarely checked ==>A third defect of SSNs is that they have no error-detecting capability, such as a check digit at the end of the number. ==>A check digit enables computer systems to detect common data entry errors, such as getting one digit wrong or transposing two adjacent digits.

TALON DATABASE

1. The US Department of Defense created the Threat and Local Observation Notices (TALON) database in 2003. 2. The purpose of the database was to collect reports of suspicious activities or terrorist threats near military bases ==>These reports were submitted by military personnel or civilians and then assessed by Department of Defense experts as either "credible" or "not credible." 3. In December 2005, NBC News reported that the database contained reports on antiwar protests occurring far from military bases 4. In July 2006, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network reported that the TALON database contained emails from students at Southern Connecticut State University, the State University of New York at Albany, the University of California at Berkeley, andWilliam Paterson University of New Jersey who were planning protests against on-campus military recruiting 5. The American Civil Liberties Union asked Congress to take steps "to ensure that Americans may once again exercise their First Amendment rights without fear that they will be tracked in a government database of suspicious activities" 6. In April 2007, the new Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence recommended that the TALON program be terminated . The TALON database was shut down on September 17, 2007

The REAL ID Act

1. The motivation for passing the REAL ID Act was to make the driver's license a more reliable form of identification. 2. Critics, however, say the act would create a de facto national ID card in the United States. 3. The REAL ID Act requires that every state issue new driver's licenses. 4. These licenses will be needed in order to open a bank account, fly on a commercial airplane, enter a federal building, or receive a government service, such as a Social Security check. ==>The federal government estimates the total cost of implementing REAL ID nationwide to be more than $23 billion—or more than $100 per driver's license ===>The Department of Homeland Security pushed back the deadline for implementing the new driver's licenses from 2008 to 2013. ==>Most states did not meet the deadline. In December 2012 the DHS announced that it would provide temporary deferments to states that had not yet issued new driver's licenses meeting the criteria of the REAL ID Act. ==> As of April 18, 2013, a total of 19 states had come into compliance with the REAL ID Act [81]

CODE OF FAIR INFORMATION PRACTICES

1. There must be no personal data record-keeping systems whose very existence is secret. 2. There must be a way for a person to find out what information about the person is in a record and how it is used. 3. There must be a way for a person to prevent information about the person that was obtained for one purpose from being used or made available for other purposes without the person's consent. 4. There must be a way for a person to correct or amend a record of identifiable information about the person. 5. Any organization creating, maintaining, using, or disseminating records of identifiable personal data must assure the reliability of the data for their intended use and must take precautions to prevent misuses of the data.

Wiretaps and Bugs (pg 278)

1. Wiretap - interception of telephone communication ==>Wiretapping has been taking place ever since the 1890s ==>New York made wiretapping a felony in 1892, but the police in New York City ignored the law and continued the practice of wiretapping until 1920, 2. Olmstead v. U.S. (277 US 438) ==> catching Bootlegging in Seattle, Washington during Prohibition (1919-1933) ==>Roy Olmstead, who ran a $2-million-a-year bootlegging business in Seattle, Washington, federal agents tapped his phone without a warrant 4. Illegal wiretap used to obtain evidence and convict Olmstead 5. US Supreme Court ruled against Olmstead ==>Justice Louis Brandeis was one of the four judges siding with Olmstead. 6. Federal Communications Act (1934) makes wiretapping illegal 7. US Supreme Court reversed Olmstead in 1937 ==>In Nardone v. United States, the Court ruled that evidence obtained by federal agents from warrantless wiretaps was inadmissible in court. ==>In another decision, Weiss v. United States, it ruled that the prohibition on wiretapping applied to intrastate as well as interstate telephone calls. 8. After World War II broke out in Europe, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover continued wiretaps, arguing that prohibition was on revealing information 9. Allowed by (President Roosevelt) F.D.R. in national security cases 10. Evidence was inadmissible in court 11. FBI maintained two sets of records ==>Confidential files contained wiretap info ==>Official files contained admissible evidence ==>J. Edgar Hoover routinely engaged in political surveillance, tapping the telephones of senators, congressmen, and Supreme Court justices ==>Hoover used information gathered during this surveillance to discredit congressmen who were trying to limit the power of the FBI 12. Charles Katz vs. US (389 US 347) ==>bug is a hidden microphone used for surveillance ==>Charles Katz used a public telephone to place bets. The FBI placed a bug on the outside of the telephone booth to record Katz's telephone conversations. 13. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=389&invol=347 14. US Supreme Court rules bugs covered by Fourth Amendment ==>In Charles Katz v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Katz. Justice Potter Stewart wrote that "the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places" 15. by 1967 the US Supreme Court had closed the door to wiretapping and bugging performed without a warrant (court order). 16. Bug-is a hidden microphone used for surveillance. 17. After the Katz decision, police were left without any electronic surveillance tools in their fight against crime.

Carnivore Surveillance System

1. developed by the FBI in the late 1990s to monitor Internet traffic, including email messages. 2. The system itself consisted of a Windows PC and packet-sniffing software capable of identifying and recording packets originating from or directed to a particular IP address. 3. Armed with a search warrant, the FBI would set up its Carnivore system at the suspect's Internet service provider 4. In 2000 the Justice Department demanded that Earthlink, an Internet service provider, allow the FBI to use Carnivore without a warrant. 5. Earthlink filed a legal challenge questioning the FBI's authority to do this under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, but a US District Court ruled against Earthlink 6. Between 1998 and 2000 the FBI used the Carnivore system about 25 times. In late 2001 the FBI stopped using Carnivore, replacing it with commercial software capable of performing the same function

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996

1. http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaanProtects patient information 2. Effective April 2003 3. Forbids releasing information to life insurance companies, banks, family members, etc. without authorization 4. Insures patient rights to see own records ==>Congress directed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to come up with guidelines for protecting the privacy of patients ==>They limit how doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, and insurance companies can use medical information collected from patients The regulations attempt to limit the exchange of information among health care providers to that information necessary to care for the patient.

Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008

1. is designed to prevent discrimination in the areas of medical benefits and employment based on genetic information. 2. It prohibits health insurance companies and health plan administrators from requesting genetic information from individuals or their family members, and it forbids them from using genetic information when making decisions about coverage, rates, or preexisting conditions. 3. It also prohibits most employers from taking genetic information into account when making hiring, firing, promotion, or any other decisions related to the terms of employment.

OneDOJ Database

1. managed by the US Department of Justice, provides state and local police officers access to information supplied by five federal law enforcement agencies: the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the US Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Prisons. 2. stores incident reports, interrogation summaries, and other information not presently available through the National Crime Information Center. 3. Critics of the OneDOJ database point out that it gives local police officers access to information about people who have not been arrested or charged with any crime

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA)

1. provides for judicial and congressional oversight of the government's covert surveillance of foreign governments and their agents. 2. The law allows the president to authorize electronic surveillance of foreign nationals for up to one year without a court order, as long as there is little chance that the surveillance will reveal the contents of communications with any US citizens. 3. FISA was amended by the Protect America Act of 2007. 4. This act allows the US government to wiretap communications beginning or ending in a foreign country without oversight by the FISA Court. ==>In June 2013, the British newspaper the Guardian disclosed it had received a top secret document outlining how the National Security Agency had obtained direct access to the servers at Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and other Internet giants ==>(The document was provided by Edward Snowden, a former employee of NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.) 5. The secret program, called PRISM, enables the NSA to access stored information such as email messages and monitor live communications such as Skype and PalTalk conversations without first obtaining search warrants, when the NSA has a reasonable suspicion that the person being investigated is a foreigner outside the United States. ==>According to the secret document, the NSA gained access to the servers of Microsoft in 2007; Yahoo in 2008; Google and Facebook in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and Apple in 2012 ==>The Obama administration provided the following statement: "The Guardian and Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. ==>This law does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person located within the United States"

US Legislation Authorizing Wiretapping

1. the Federal Communications Act of 1934 made wiretapping illegal, 2. by 1967 the US Supreme Court had closed the door to wiretapping and bugging performed without a warrant (court order) 3. After the Katz decision, police were left without any electronic surveillance tools in their fight against crime 4. In 1968 the country was rocked by violent antiwar demonstrations and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy 5. Law enforcement agencies pressured Congress to allow wiretapping under some circumstances.

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

1. which went into effect in 2000, is designed to reduce the amount of information gathered from children using the Internet. 2. According to COPPA, online services must obtain parental consent before collecting any information from children 12 years old and younger.

Video Privacy Protection Act

1.http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002710----000-.html 2. Prompted by Bork nomination hearing 3. Stores can not disclose information without consumer's consent 4. Must destroy personal records within one year, unless currently required In 1988 President Ronald Reagan nominated Judge Robert Bork to the US Supreme Court According to this law, video providers (including providers of online videos) cannot disclose rental records without the written consent of the customer

Family Education Rights and Privacy Act

1.http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html 2. Guarantees students and parents access to records 3. Insures privacy for students over 18 4. provides students 18 years of age and older the right to review their educational records and to request changes to records that contain erroneous information. 5. Students also have the right to prevent information in these records from being released without their permission, except under certain circumstances. FERPA applies to all educational institutions that receive funds from the US Department of Education

Telemarketing & Privacy

====+>After being sworn in as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2001, Timothy Muris looked for an action that the FTC could take to protect the privacy of Americans. 1. Telemarketing bothers us inside of our homes 2. Violates our privacy and right to be left alone 3. Do Not Call Registry (www.donotcall.gov) -==>May lead to increase in junk mail and other mass marketing methods ==>The public reacted enthusiastically to the availability of the Do Not Call Registry by registering more than 50 million phone numbers before it even took effect in October 2003

Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (1994) (285)

===>Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA), also known as the Digital Telephony Act. 1. This law required that networking equipment used by phone companies be designed or modified so that law enforcement agencies can trace calls, listen in on telephone calls, and intercept email messages. 2. CALEA thereby ensured that court-ordered wiretapping would still be possible even as new digital technologies were introduced. 3. The FBI asked for many capabilities, including the ability to intercept digits typed by the caller after the phone call was placed. 4. This feature would let it catch credit card numbers and bank account numbers, for example. 5. In 1999 the FCC finally issued the guidelines, which included this capability and five more requested by the FBI. 6. Privacy rights organizations argued these capabilities went beyond the authorization of CALEA . 7. Nevertheless, in August 2005, the FCC gave Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and certain other broadband providers 18 months to modify their systems as necessary so that law enforcement agencies could wiretap calls made using their services 8. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups challenged the FCC decision in court, blocking the implementation of the order

USA PATRIOT Act

==>9/11-Two of the planes flew into New York's World Trade Center, a third hit the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.(3,000 deaths) ==>Congress passed theUniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act of 2001, henceforth referred to as the Patriot Act 1. The Patriot Act has raised many questions about the extent to which government agencies should be able to collect information about individuals in the United States without first obtaining a search warrant

Electronic Communications Privacy Act

==>Congress updated the wiretapping law in 1986 with the passage of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) 1. The ECPA allows police to attach two kinds of surveillance devices to a suspect's phone line 2. If the suspect makes a phone call, a pen register displays the number being dialed. 3. If the suspect gets a phone call, a trap-and-trace device displays the caller's phone number. ==>While a court order is needed to approve the installation of pen registers and trap-and-trace devices, prosecutors do not need to demonstrate probable cause, and the approval is virtually automatic. 4. The ECPA also allows police to conduct roving wiretaps—wiretaps that move from phone to phone—if they can demonstrate the suspect is attempting to avoid surveillance by using many different phones

Stored Communications Act

==>The Stored Communications Act, part of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, has significant privacy implications related to the collection of email messages 1. Under this law, the government does not need a search warrant to obtain from an Internet service provider email messages more than 180 days old. ==>In the past it had been understood that the government needed a court order to gain access to emails under 180 days old, but in 2010 the government asked Yahoo to turn over emails under 180 days old that had already been read by the recipient ====>challenged by Yahoo in federal court and supported by Google(Electronic Frontier Foundation and Center for Democracy &Technology) the government withdrew the demand for emails 2. In other words, when a computer user allows an Internet service provider to store his or her email messages, the user is giving up the expectation of privacy of that information 3. The Stored Communications Act, part of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, has significant privacy implications related to the collection of email messages. 4. DIGITAL DUE PROCESS===>Nearly 50 companies and privacy rights organizations, including AOL, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Library Association, AT&T, Consumer Action, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft, have joined forces to form an organization called Digital Due Process, which is lobbying Congress to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. 5. Internet provides once just transmitted emails now they provide storage 6. The view of the Digital Due Process coalition is that the government should not be able to obtain an email message, document, or photo from an Internet or cloud service provider without a proper search warrant

CHECK DIGIT

A check digit enables computer systems to detect common data entry errors, such as getting one digit wrong or transposing two adjacent digits.

Syndromic Surveillance Systems (data mining application)

A syndromic surveillance system is a computerized system that analyzes 911 calls, visits to the emergency room, school absenteeism, purchases of prescription drugs, and Internet searches to find patterns that might indicate the onset of an epidemic, an environmental problem leading to illnesses, or bioterrorism. 1. In the fall of 2002, a syndromic surveillance system in New York City detected a surge in people seeking treatment for vomiting and diarrhea. These symptoms were the first signs of an outbreak of a Norwalk-type virus

Internal Revenue Service Audits

A. To identify taxpayers who have paid less in taxes than they owe, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) uses computer-matching and data-mining strategies. B. First, it matches information on the tax form with information provided by employers and financial institutions. C. Second, the IRS audits a couple of million tax returns every year. Its goal is to select the most promising returns—those containing errors resulting in underpayment of taxes. D. The IRS uses a computerized system called the discriminant function (DIF) to score every tax return. The DIF score is an indicator of how many irregularities there are on a tax form, compared to carefully constructed profiles of correct tax returns. E. About 60 percent of tax returns audited by the IRS are selected due to their high DIF scores. 1. First national income tax 1862 2. Repealed in 1872 3. Reinstated in 1898 4. Ruled unconstitutional in 1899 5. 16th Amendment 1913 6. Tax form contains much personal information 7. IRS investigates hundreds of employees yearly for misusing information in tax returns 8. 2003 - five consumer groups complained that costumers of H&R Blocks's web based filing received advertising for related products

Personal (private) records

Can be made public through consent -==>May require disclosure =>As an airline passenger =>To obtain loans =>To obtain marriage licenses -==>May be inadvertently disclosed =>Court records

Data Mining by the Government

Data mining is the process of searching through one or more databases looking for patterns or relationships among the data

trap-and-trace device

If the suspect gets a phone call it displays the caller's phone number

pen register

If the suspect makes a phone call it displays the number being dialed

Requiring Identification for Pseudoephedrine Purchases

In an effort to curb the illegal production of methamphetamine ("meth"), federal and state governments have passed laws limiting access to products containing pseudoephedrine, which is used in the manufacture of methamphetamine. The Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act limits the quantity of pseudoephedrine that an individual can purchase in a month

Invasion

Invasion refers to activities that intrude upon a person's daily life, interrupt a person's solitude, or interfere with someone's decision making

panopticon

Is a prison where someone is watching you 24/7.

Predictive Policing

Predictive policing is the use of data mining to deploy police officers to areas where crimes are more likely to occur. It is based on the observation that individual criminals act in a predictable way. ==>Police in Santa Cruz, California, created a database of information about vehicular, residential, and commercial burglaries, then used data mining to produce maps containing 15 "hotspots" to distribute to police officers as they began their shifts ==>The Los Angeles Police Department implemented a similar system in an area with 300,000 residents and observed a 12 percent decline in property crime.

Telecommunications Records Database

Shortly after September 11, 2001, several major telecommunications providers began turning over the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans to the National Security Agency, without a court order. NSA was analyzing calling patterns in order to detect potential terrorist networks. 1. After USA Today revealed the existence of the database in May 2006, more than a dozen class-action lawsuits were filed against the telecommunications companies 2. In August 2006, a federal judge in Detroit ruled the programto be illegal and unconstitutional, violating several statutes as well as the First and Fourth Amendments to the US Constitution 3. In July 2007, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned the ruling on the grounds that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the suit forward.

Loud Television Commercials

Since the 1960s, television watchers have complained to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about loud commercials. The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM Act), signed into law by President Obama in December 2010, required the Federal Communications Commission to ensure that television commercials are played at the same volume as the programs they are interrupting

Provisions of the Patriot Act

The Patriot Act amended many existing laws. Its provisions fall into four principal categories: 1. Providing federal law enforcement and intelligence officials with greater authority to monitor communications 2. Giving the Secretary of the Treasury greater powers to regulate banks, preventing them from being used to launder foreign money 3. Making it more difficult for terrorists to enter the United States 4. Defining new crimes and penalties for terrorist activity We focus on those provisions of the Patriot Act that most directly affect the privacy of persons living inside the United States. 5. The Patriot Act expands the kinds of information that law enforcement officials can gather with pen registers and trap-and-trace devices. 6. It allows police to use pen registers on the Internet to track email addresses and URLs. The law does not require they demonstrate probable cause. ==>The Patriot Act extends the jurisdiction of court-ordered wiretaps to the entire country. A judge in New York can authorize the installation of a device in California, for example ==>The act also allows the nationwide application of court-ordered search warrants for terrorist-related investigations. ==>The Patriot Act allows roving surveillance to be performed for the purpose of intelligence, and the government does not have to prove that the person under investigation actually uses the device to be tapped. ==>Additionally, it does not require that the law enforcement agency report back to the authorizing judge regarding the number of devices monitored and the results of the monitoring 7. Under the Patriot Act, law enforcement officials wishing to intercept communications to and from a person who has illegally gained access to a computer system do not need a court order if they have the permission of the owner of the computer system 8. The Patriot Act allows courts to authorize law enforcement officers to search a person's premises without first serving a search warrant when there is "reasonable cause to believe that providing immediate notification of the execution of the warrant may have an adverse effect." ==>Officers may seize property that "constitutes evidence of a criminal offense in violation of the laws of the United States," even if that offense is unrelated to terrorism.

Covert Activities after 9/11

The September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon spawned new, secret intelligence-gathering operations within the United States.

telephony metadata

included the date and time of each telephone call, the location of the phone making the call, the duration of the conversation, and "other identifying information."

Information collection

refers to activities that gather personal information.

Information dissemination

refers to activities that spread personal information

Information processing

refers to activities that store, manipulate, and use personal information that has been collected

Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2004

requires the three major credit bureaus to provide consumers a free copy of their credit report every 12 months. Consumers can use this opportunity to detect and correct errors in their credit reports 1. It requires the truncation of account numbers on credit card receipts, and it establishes the National Fraud Alert System. Victims of identity theft may put a fraud alert on their credit files, warning credit card issuers that theymust take "reasonable steps" to verify the requester's identity before granting credit.

roving wiretaps

wiretaps that move from phone to phone—if they can demonstrate the suspect is attempting to avoid surveillance by using many different phones