Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas
At 10:06 PM -0800 11/11/07, Steven L. Robinson wrote:
>Intelligence official says people need to redefine privacy
>By Pamela Hess
>
>The Associated Press
> Sunday, November 11, 2007
>
>Washington -- As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a
>top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States
>changed their definition of privacy.
>
>Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy
>director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government
>and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and
>financial information.
>
>Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign
>Intelligence Surveillance Act.
>
>Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer to allow the government
>to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as
>one end of the conversation was reasonably believed to be located outside
>the U.S.
>
>The original law required a court order for any surveillance conducted on
>U.S. soil, to protect Americans' privacy. The White House argued that the
>law was obstructing intelligence gathering because, as technology has
>changed, a growing amount of foreign communications passes through
>U.S.-based channels.
>
>The most contentious issue in the new legislation is whether to shield
>telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for allegedly giving the
>government access to people's private e-mails and phone calls without a FISA
>court order between 2001 and 2007.
>
>Some lawmakers, including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appear
>reluctant to grant immunity. Suits might be the only way to determine how
>far the government has burrowed into people's privacy without court
>permission.
>
>The committee is expected to decide this week whether its version of the
>bill will protect telecommunications companies. About 40 wiretapping suits
>are pending.
>
>The central witness in a California lawsuit against AT&T says the government
>is vacuuming up billions of e-mails and phone calls as they pass through an
>AT&T switching station in San Francisco.
>
>Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, helped connect a device in 2003 that
>he says diverted and copied onto a government supercomputer every call,
>e-mail, and Internet site access on AT&T lines.
>
>The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the class-action suit,
>claims there are as many as 20 such sites in the U.S.
>
>The White House has promised to veto any bill that does not grant immunity
>from suits such as this one.
>
>Congressional leaders hope to finish the bill by Thanksgiving. It would
>replace the FISA update enacted in August that privacy groups and civil
>libertarians say allows the government to read Americans' e-mails and listen
>to their phone calls without court oversight.
>
>Kerr said at an October intelligence conference in San Antonio that he finds
>concerns that the government may be listening in odd when people are
>"perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an (Internet service provider)
>who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the United States to
>handle their data."
>
>He noted that government employees face up to five years in prison and
>$100,000 in fines if convicted of misusing private information.
>
>Millions of people in this country - particularly young people - already
>have surrendered anonymity to social networking sites such as MySpace and
>Facebook, and to Internet commerce. These sites reveal to the public,
>government and corporations what was once closely guarded information, like
>personal statistics and credit card numbers.
>
>"Those two generations younger than we are have a very different idea of
>what is essential privacy, what they would wish to protect about their lives
>and affairs. And so, it's not for us to inflict one size fits all," said
>Kerr, 68. "Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won. Anyone that's
>typed in their name on Google understands that."
>
>"Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy
>as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety," Kerr
>said. "I think all of us have to really take stock of what we already are
>willing to give up, in terms of anonymity, but (also) what safeguards we
>want in place to be sure that giving that doesn't empty our bank account or
>do something equally bad elsewhere."
>
>Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
>an advocacy group that defends online free speech, privacy and intellectual
>property rights, said Kerr's argument ignores both privacy laws and American
>history.
>
>"Anonymity has been important since the Federalist Papers were written under
>pseudonyms," Opsahl said. "The government has tremendous power: the police
>power, the ability to arrest, to detain, to take away rights. Tying together
>that someone has spoken out on an issue with their identity is a far more
>dangerous thing if it is the government that is trying to tie it together."
>
>Opsahl also said Kerr ignores the distinction between sacrificing protection
>from an intrusive government and voluntarily disclosing information in
>exchange for a service.
>
>"There is something fundamentally different from the government having
>information about you than private parties," he said. "We shouldn't have to
>give people the choice between taking advantage of modern communication
>tools and sacrificing their privacy."
>
>"It's just another 'trust us, we're the government,'" he said.
>___
>
>On the Net:
>
>Kerr's speech: http://tinyurl.com/23dycq
>
>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/11/08/national/w100630
>S78.DTL
>
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