|
|
ONLINE FEATURES
Book Reviews
BW Video
Columnists
Interactive Gallery
Newsletters
Past Covers
Philanthropy
Podcasts
Special Reports
BLOGS
Auto Beat
Bangalore Tigers
Blogspotting
Brand New Day
Byte of the Apple
Economics Unbound
Eye on Asia
Fine On Media
Green Biz
Hot Property
Investing Insights
Management IQ
NEXT: Innovation
NussbaumOnDesign
Tech Beat
Working Parents
TECHNOLOGY
J.D. Power Ratings
Product Reviews
Tech Stats
Wildstrom: Tech Maven
AUTOS
Home Page
Auto Reviews
Classic Cars
Car Care & Safety
Hybrids
INNOVATION
& DESIGN Home Page Architecture Brand Equity Auto Design Game Room SMALLBIZ Smart Answers Success Stories Today's Tip INVESTING Investing: Europe Annual Reports BW 50 S&P Picks & Pans Stock Screeners Free S&P Stock Report SCOREBOARDS Hot Growth 100 Mutual Funds Info Tech 100 S&P 500 B-SCHOOLS Undergrad Programs MBA Blogs MBA Profiles MBA Rankings Who's Hiring Grads | |
MARCH 27, 2003 PRIVACY MATTERS By Jane Black Putting the Blinders Back on Big Brother Often restricted in wartime, citizens' rights have always been restored with peace. This time, government snooping may be harder to stop
In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11 -- and with the U.S. invasion of Iraq now in full force -- the balance is once again shifting toward security at the expense of privacy. The USA Patriot Act, passed just six weeks after the terrorist attacks, gave law enforcement sweeping surveillance powers and eliminated checks that empowered the courts to ensure such powers weren't abused. Since then, the Justice Dept. has ramped up its use of "emergency foreign intelligence warrants," which let the U.S. Attorney General issue secret surveillance warrants that are valid for 72 hours before they receive any review by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Attorney General John Ashcroft has personally signed 170 emergency warrants, three times the number authorized over the previous 23 years. Not satisfied, Justice has drafted a new bill, dubbed Patriot Act II, to further expand the government's wiretapping powers and roll back the Freedom of Information Act -- the law that gives the press a window into the innermost workings of government. TRAVEL DATABASE. The question is whether, as in the past, these sweeping powers will be rolled back once the threat of war and terrorism recedes. The danger -- heightened by the fact that many of the new methods involve subtle and unobtrusive technological snooping -- is that these measures will become too embedded in the fabric of law enforcement for Bush to act. "I can imagine the provisions of the Patriot Act eventually being repealed," says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a Washington (D.C.) advocacy group. "But it's more difficult to imagine the circumstances under which technologies and systems of government control will be dismantled." That possibility should give every citizen pause, considering that not a few of the technologies the Bush Administration still wants to implement would routinely monitor not just suspected terrorists and criminals, but all Americans. Congress has balked in a couple of instances, scuttling Ashcroft's TIPS plan, which would have enlisted truckers, cable installers, janitors, and others to inform on their fellow citizens (see BW Online, 7/25/02, "Some TIPS for John Ashcroft "). And Congress also has put on hold the Defense Dept.'s plan to build a Total Information Awareness (TIA) program that would combine every American's bank records, tax filings, driver's-license information, credit-card purchases, medical data, and phone and e-mail records into one giant, centralized database that could be combed for indications of suspicious activity. BARRICADES NEEDED. Undeterred, the Administration is now planning an upgrade of the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS), which has been in place since 1996, to a new version, known as CAPPS II, that would be overseen by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA). The goal is to build a central database of travelers that could warn airlines and law-enforcement officials if someone who fits the profile of a terrorist tries to board a flight. TSA Administrator Admiral James M. Loy has said his privacy amens, but he's vague about just how he plans to protect the personal information that will be collected and analyzed for CAPPS II. Until he does, Congress should throw up the barricades against CAPPS II, just as it did against TIPS and TIA. To date, the only oversight or restriction anyone has suggested for CAPPS II is a Senate Commerce Committee request that the TSA present a report within three months on how the new system would affect "the privacy and civil liberties of U.S. citizens." But legislation that would require that, sponsored by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), is still awaiting a vote in both houses. Nor is it clear that such a report would ever be made public. If CAPPS II is to go ahead, as seems likely, the public needs to know how the system will work -- and have some guaranteed protections in case it runs amok. The details of CAPPS II aren't yet set in stone. But here's what's clear so far: Like the original CAPPS, the new system will select passengers at random and compare their names to a government no-fly list. The upgrade is necessary, says the TSA, because the original CAPPS casts too wide a net, sweeping up travelers who pose no threat.
  | | MARCH |
 Copyright 2003, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.Terms of Use | Privacy Policy |
Printer-Friendly Version
