| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Captain Compassion" |
| Date: |
11 May 2006 02:54:32 PM |
| Object: |
Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment |
May 2005, Page 20
http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/0/5218f4b86e3bc1a885257019006b268b?OpenDocument
Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment
By Daniel J. Solove
To live in the modern world, we must enter into numerous relationships
with other people and businesses: doctors, lawyers, merchants,
magazines, newspapers, banks, credit card companies, employers,
landlords, ISPs, insurance companies, phone companies, and cable
companies. The list goes on and on. Our relationships with all of
these entities generate records containing personal information
necessary to establish an account and record our transactions and
preferences. We are becoming a society of records, and these records
are not held by us, but by third parties.
These record systems are becoming increasingly useful to law
enforcement officials. Personal information can help the government
detect fraud, espionage, fugitives, drug distribution rings, and
terrorist cells. Information about a person’s financial transactions,
purchases, and religious and political beliefs can assist the
investigation of suspected criminals and can be used to profile people
for more thorough searches at airports.
Fourth Amendment, Records, And Privacy
The U.S. Supreme Court held that there is no reasonable expectation in
privacy for information known or exposed to third parties. In United
States v. Miller, federal agents presented subpoenas to two banks to
produce the defendant’s financial records. The defendant argued that
the Fourth Amendment required a warrant, not a subpoena, but the High
Court concluded that the amendment didn’t apply. There is no
reasonable expectation of privacy in the records, the Court reasoned,
because the information is “revealed to a third party.”1 Thus, “checks
are not confidential communications but negotiable instruments to be
used in commercial transactions. All of the documents obtained,
including financial statements and deposit slips, contain only
information voluntarily conveyed to the banks and exposed to their
employees in the ordinary course of business.”2
The Court used similar reasoning in Smith v. Maryland. Without a
warrant, the police asked a telephone company to use a pen register,
which is a device installed at the phone company to record the numbers
dialed from the defendant’s home. The Court concluded that since
people “know that they must convey numerical information to the phone
company,” they cannot “harbor any general expectation that the numbers
they dial will remain secret.”3
Miller and Smith establish a general rule that if information is in
the hands of third parties, then an individual lacks a reasonable
expectation of privacy in that information, which means that the
Fourth Amendment does not apply.4 Individuals thus probably do not
have a reasonable expectation of privacy in communications and records
maintained by ISPs or computer network administrators.5
The third party record doctrine stems from the secrecy paradigm. If
information is not completely secret, if it is exposed to others, then
it loses its status as private. Smith and Miller have been extensively
criticized throughout the past several decades. However, it is only
recently that we are beginning to see the profound implications of the
third party doctrine. Smith and Miller are the new Olmstead v. United
States, where the Court in 1928 concluded that wiretapping was not
protected by the Fourth Amendment.6
For nearly 40 years until it was reversed in Katz v. United States,7
the government’s power to engage in wiretapping and other forms of
electronic surveillance fell outside of the reach of the Fourth
Amendment, and the legislation that filled the void was ineffective.
Gathering information from third party records is an emerging law
enforcement practice with as many potential dangers as the wiretapping
in Olmstead. “The progress of science in furnishing the government
with means of espionage is not likely to stop with wiretapping,”
Justice Brandeis observed in his Olmstead dissent. “Ways may some day
be developed by which the government, without removing papers from
secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be
enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the
home.”8
That day is here. The government’s harvesting of information from the
extensive dossiers being assembled with modern computer technology
poses one of the most significant threats to privacy of our times.9
Emerging Statutory Regime And Its Limits
Throughout the twentieth century, when the Supreme Court held that the
Fourth Amendment was inapplicable to new practices or technology,
Congress often responded by passing statutes that afforded some level
of protection. Through a series of statutes, Congress has established
a regime regulating government access to third party records. This
regime erects a particular architecture significantly different from
that of the Fourth Amendment. Unfortunately, this regime is woefully
inadequate.
Procedural Requirements To Obtain Information. The most significant
deficiency is that a majority of the statutes permit government access
to third party records with only a court order or subpoena — a
significant departure from the Fourth Amendment, which generally
requires warrants supported by probable cause to be issued by a
neutral and detached judge. Unlike warrants, subpoenas do not require
probable cause and can be issued without judicial approval.
Prosecutors, not neutral judicial officers, can issue subpoenas.10
According to Stuntz: “[W]hile searches typically require probable
cause or reasonable suspicion and sometimes require a warrant,
subpoenas require nothing, save that the subpoena not be unreasonably
burdensome to its target. Few burdens are deemed unreasonable.”11
According to legal scholar Ronald Degnan, subpoenas are not issued
“with great circumspection” and are often “handed out blank in batches
and filled in by lawyers.”12 As Stuntz contends, federal subpoena
power is “akin to a blank check.”13
Prosecutors can also use grand jury subpoenas to obtain third party
records.14 Grand jury subpoenas are “presumed to be reasonable” and
may only be quashed if “there is no reasonable possibility that the
category of materials the Government seeks will produce information
relevant to the general subject of the grand jury investigation.”15 As
Stuntz observes, grand jury subpoenas “are much less heavily
regulated” than search warrants:
As long as the material asked for is relevant to the grand jury’s
investigation and as long as compliance with the subpoena is not too
burdensome, the subpoena is enforced. No showing of probable cause or
reasonable suspicion is necessary, and courts measure relevance and
burden with a heavy thumb on the government’s side of the scales.16
Therefore, courts “quash or modify” subpoenas only “if compliance
would be unreasonable or oppressive.”17 Further, “judges decide these
motions by applying vague legal standards case by case.”18
Court orders under most of the statutes are not much more constrained
than subpoenas. They typically require mere “relevance” to an ongoing
criminal investigation, a standard significantly lower and looser than
probable cause.
The problem with subpoenas and court orders is that they supply the
judiciary with greatly attenuated oversight powers. The role of the
judge in issuing or reviewing subpoenas is merely to determine whether
producing records is overly burdensome. With this focus, financial
hardship in producing information would give courts more pause when
reviewing subpoenas than would threats to privacy. The role of the
judiciary in court orders is also quite restricted. Instead of
requiring probable cause, court orders require the government to
demonstrate that records are “relevant” to a criminal investigation, a
much weaker standard. In short, judicial involvement with subpoenas
and court orders amounts to little more than a rubber stamp of
judicial legitimacy.
Wiretapping And Bugging. When the Court held in Olmstead that the
Fourth Amendment did not apply to wiretapping, Congress responded six
years later by enacting § 605 of the Federal Communications Act of
1934. As discussed earlier, § 605 was far too narrow and limited. In
1968, a year after the Supreme Court in Katz declared that the Fourth
Amendment applied to wiretapping, Congress enacted Title III of the
Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act,19 which greatly
strengthened the law of wiretapping, extending its reach to state
officials and private parties.
In 1986, Congress amended Title III with the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act (ECPA). The ECPA restructured Title III into three parts,
known as the “Wiretap Act,” which governs the interception of
communications; the “Stored Communications Act,” which covers access
to stored communications and records; and the “Pen Register Act,”
which regulates pen registers and trap and trace devices.20
The Wiretap Act covers wiretapping and bugging. It applies when a
communication is intercepted during transmission. The act has strict
requirements for obtaining a court order to engage in electronic
surveillance.21 In certain respects, the Wiretap Act’s requirements
are stricter than those for a Fourth Amendment search warrant.
22 It also requires that the surveillance “minimize the interception
of communications” not related to the investigation. The act is
enforced with an exclusionary rule.23
However, the interception of electronic communications not involving
the human voice (such as e-mail) are not protected with an
exclusionary rule. Although the Wiretap Act has substantial
protections, it covers ground already protected by the Fourth
Amendment. In areas not protected by the Fourth Amendment, the
architecture of the statutory regime is much weaker and more porous.
Stored Communications. Communications service providers frequently
store their customers’ communications. ISPs temporarily store e-mail
until it is downloaded by the recipient. Many ISPs enable users to
keep copies of previously read e-mails on the ISP’s server, as well as
copies of their sent emails. Since a third party maintains the
information, the Fourth Amendment may not apply.24
The Stored Communications Act provides some protection, but
unfortunately it is quite confusing and its protection is limited.
Electronic storage is defined as “any temporary, intermediate storage
of a wire or electronic communication incidental to the electronic
transmission thereof,” and “any storage of such communication by an
electronic communication service for purposes of backup protection.”25
This definition clearly covers e-mail that is waiting on the ISP’s
server to be downloaded. But what about previously read e-mail that
remains on the ISP’s server? According to the Department of Justice’s
(DOJ) interpretation of the act, the email is no longer in temporary
storage, and is therefore “simply a remotely stored file.”26 The act
permits law enforcement officials to access it merely by issuing a
subpoena to the ISP.27 And in contrast to the Wiretap Act, the Stored
Communications Act does not have an exclusionary rule.
Communications Service Records. The Stored Communications Act also
regulates government access to a customer’s communications service
records, which consist of the customer’s name, address, phone numbers,
payment information, and services used.28 One of the most important
pieces of information in ISP records is the customer’s identity. An
ISP may have information linking a customer’s screen name to her real
name. Thus, an ISP often holds the key to one’s ability to communicate
anonymously on the Internet. The government often wants to obtain this
information to identify a particular speaker. To access customer
records, the government must obtain a court order, which requires
“specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable
grounds to believe that . . . the records or other information sought,
are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.”29
Further, since the act lacks an exclusionary rule, information
obtained in violation of the law can still be introduced in court.30
Pen Registers, E-mail Headers, And Websurfing. The Pen Register Act
attempts to fill the void left by Smith v. Maryland by requiring a
court order to use a pen register or trap and trace device.31 Whereas
a pen register records the phone numbers a person dials from her home,
a trap and trace device creates a list of the telephone numbers of
incoming calls. The USA-PATRIOT Act, passed in 2001 shortly after the
September 11th attacks, expanded the scope of the Pen Register Act.
The definition of a pen register now extends beyond phone numbers to
also encompass addressing information on e-mails and IP addresses. An
IP address is the unique address assigned to a particular computer
connected to the Internet. All computers connected to the Internet
have one. Consequently, a list of IP addresses accessed reveals the
various Web sites that a person has visited.
Because Web sites are often distinctively tailored to particular
topics and interests, a comprehensive list of them can reveal a lot
about a person’s life. The court order to obtain this information,
however, only requires the government to demonstrate that “the
information likely to be obtained . . . is relevant to an ongoing
criminal investigation.”32 Courts cannot look beyond the certification
nor inquire into the truthfulness of the facts in the application.
Once the government official makes the proper certification, the court
must issue the order.33 As one court has observed, the “judicial role
in approving use of trap and trace devices is ministerial in
nature.”34 Finally, there is no exclusionary rule for Pen Register Act
violations.
Financial Records. Two years after United States v. Miller, Congress
filled the void with the Right to Financial Privacy Act (RFPA) of
1978, which requires the government to obtain a warrant or subpoena to
access records from banks or other financial institutions.35 However,
the subpoena merely requires a “reason to believe that the records
sought are relevant to a legitimate law enforcement inquiry.”36 When
subpoena authority is not available to the government, the government
need only submit a formal written request for the information.37
In addition to banks, credit reporting agencies have detailed records
for nearly every adult American consumer. Under the Fair Credit
Reporting Act (FCRA) of 1970, a consumer reporting agency “may furnish
identifying information respecting any consumer, limited to his name,
address, former addresses, places of employment, or former places of
employment, to a governmental agency.”38 Thus, the government can
simply request this information without any court involvement. And the
government can obtain more information with a court order or grand
jury subpoena.39 Since the FCRA focuses on credit reporting agencies,
it doesn’t prohibit the recipients of credit reports from disclosing
them to the government.
Although the RFPA and FCRA protect financial information maintained by
banks and credit reporting agencies, the government can obtain
financial information from employers, landlords, merchants, creditors,
and database companies, among others. Therefore, financial records are
protected based only on which entities possess them. Thus, the
statutory regime merely provides partial protection of financial data.
Electronic Media Entertainment Records. The statutory regime protects
records pertaining to certain forms of electronic media entertainment.
Under the Cable Communications Policy Act (Cable Act) of 1984,40 a
government official must obtain a court order in order to obtain cable
records. The government must offer “clear and convincing evidence that
the subject of the information is reasonably suspected of engaging in
criminal activity and that the information sought would be material
evidence in the case.”41 People can “appear and contest” the court
order.42 This standard is more stringent than the Fourth Amendment’s
probable cause and warrant requirements. However, there is no
exclusionary rule under the Cable Act.
In addition to cable records, the statutory regime also protects
videotape rental records. The Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) of
1988 states that a videotape service provider may disclose customer
records to law enforcement officials “pursuant to a warrant . . . , an
equivalent state warrant, a grand jury subpoena, or a court order.”43
Unlike the Cable Act, the level of protection under the VPPA is much
less stringent.
Although the statutory regime protects the records of certain forms of
electronic media entertainment, it fails to protect the records of
many others. For example, records from music stores, electronics
merchants, and Internet media entities are afforded no protection.
Medical Records. Our medical records are maintained by third parties.
Could the third party doctrine extend to medical records? On the one
hand, given the considerable privacy protection endowed upon the
patient-physician relationship, the third party doctrine may stop at
the hospital door.44 On the other hand, the doctrine applies to
records of financial institutions, which also have a tradition of
maintaining the confidentiality of their customers’ information.45
Unless the patient-physician relationship is distinguished from banks,
the third party doctrine logically could apply to medical records.
However, the Supreme Court has yet to push the doctrine this far.
The federal health privacy rules under the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 apparently view
medical records as falling under the third party doctrine. The rules
permit law enforcement officials to access medical records with a mere
subpoena.46 Health information may also be disclosed “in response to a
law enforcement official’s request for such information for the
purpose of identifying or locating a suspect, fugitive, material
witness, or missing person.”47
Moreover, not all health records are covered by HIPAA. Only records
maintained by health plans, health care clearinghouses, and health
care providers are covered.48 Although doctors, hospitals,
pharmacists, health insurers, and HMOs are covered, not all third
parties possessing our medical information fall under HIPAA. For
example, the sale of nonprescription drugs and the rendering of
medical advice by many Internet health Websites are not covered by
HIPAA.49 Therefore, while certain health records are protected, others
are not.
Holes In The Regime. Federal statutes provide some coverage of the
void left by the inapplicability of the Fourth Amendment to records
held by third parties. Although the statutes apply to communication
records, financial records, entertainment records, and health records,
these are only protected when in the hands of particular third
parties. Thus, the statutory regime does not protect records based on
the type of information contained in the records, but protects them
based on the particular types of third parties that possess them.
Additionally, there are gaping holes in the statutory regime of
protection, with classes of records not protected at all. Such records
include those of merchants, both online and offline. Records held by
bookstores, department stores, restaurants, clubs, gyms, employers,
and other companies are not protected. Additionally, all the personal
information amassed in profiles by database companies is not covered.
Records maintained by Internet retailers and Web sites are often not
considered “communications” under the ECPA; the government can access
these records and the ECPA doesn’t apply. Thus, the statutory regime
is limited in its scope and has glaring omissions and gaps. Further,
the statutes are often complicated and confusing, and their protection
turns on technical distinctions that can leave wide fields of
information virtually unprotected.
Therefore, the current statutory regime is inadequate. As warrants
supported by probable cause are replaced by subpoenas and court orders
supported by “articulable facts” that are “relevant” to an
investigation, the role of the judge in the process is diminished to
nothing more than a decorative seal of approval. And since there are
numerous holes in the regime, there are many circumstances when
neither court orders nor subpoenas are required. The government can
simply ask for the information. An individual’s privacy is protected
only by the vague and toothless privacy policies of the companies
holding their information.
Notes
1. 425 U.S. 435, 443 (1976).
2. Id., 442.
3. 442 U.S. 735, 743 (1979).
4. See Orin S. Kerr, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Searching and Seizing
Computers and Obtaining Electronic Evidence in Criminal
Investigations, § I.B.3 (Jan. 2001). Kerr, who wrote the DOJ’s manual,
is now a law professor and a leading expert in electronic surveillance
law.
5. Id., § I.C.1(b)(iv).
6. 277 U.S. 438 (1928).
7. 389 U.S. 347 (1967).
8. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 474 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).
9. See Jerry Berman & Deirdre Mulligan, Privacy in the Digital Age:
Work in Progress, 23 Nova L. Rev. 551, 563–64 (1999).
10. Louis Fisher, Congress and the Fourth Amendment, 21 Ga. L. Rev.
107, 152 (1986).
11. William J. Stuntz, O.J. Simpson, Bill Clinton, and the
Transsubstantive Fourth Amendment, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 842, 857-58
(2001).
12. Ronan E. Degnan, Obtaining Witnesses and Documents (or Things),
108 F.R.D. 223, 232 (1986).
13. Stuntz, O.J. Simpson, 864.
14. Grand juries are still used in some states as well as in the
federal system. See Degnan, Obtaining Witnesses, 229.
15. United States v. R. Enter., Inc., 498 U.S. 292, 301 (1991).
16. William J. Stuntz, Privacy’s Problem and the Law of Criminal
Procedure, 93 Mich. L. Rev. 1016, 1038 (1995).
17. Oklahoma Press Pub. Co. v. Walling Wage, and Hour Admin., 327 U.S.
186, 208–09 (1946).
18. Stuntz, O.J. Simpson, 867.
19. Omnibus Crime and Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C.
§§ 2510–22 (2001).
20. 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510–22 (Wiretap Act); 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701–11 (Stored
Communications Act); 18 U.S.C. §§ 3121–27 (Pen Register Act).
21. Id. § 2518.
22. See Orin S. Kerr, Internet Surveillance Law after the USA-Patriot
Act: The Big Brother That Isn’t, 97 Nw. U. L. Rev. 607, 621 (2003).
23. 18 U.S.C. § 2518 (10)(a).
24. This conclusion is debatable, however, because telephone companies
can also store telephone communications, and it is unlikely that the
Court would go so far as to say that this fact eliminates any
reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications.
25. 18 U.S.C. § 2510(17) (emphasis added).
26. Kerr, Searching and Seizing, § III.B.
27. Id., § III.D.1.
28. 18 U.S.C. § 2703(c)(1)(C).
29. 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d).
30. See, e.g., United States v. Hambrick, 55 F. Supp.2d 504 (W.D. Va.
1999). For a compelling argument for why electronic surveillance
statutes should have an exclusionary rule, see Orin S. Kerr, Lifting
the ‘Fog’ of Internet Surveillance: How a Suppression Remedy Would
Change Computer Law, 54 Hastings L.J. 805 (2003).
31. 18 U.S.C. § 3121(a).
32. 18 U.S.C. § 3123(a).
33. “Upon application made under §3122(a)(1), the court shall enter an
ex parte order authorizing the installation and use of a pen register
or trap and trace device. . . .” Id. §3123 (a)(1).
34. United States v. Fregoso, 60 F.3d 1314, 1320 (8th Cir. 1995). See
also Kerr, Searching and Seizing, § IV.B.
35. See 29 U.S.C. §§ 3401–22.
36. 29 U.S.C. § 3407.
37. 29 U.S.C. § 3408.
38. 15 U.S.C. § 1681f.
39. 15 U.S.C. § 1681b(a)(1).
40. 47 U.S.C. § 551.
41. 47 U.S.C. § 551(h)(1).
42. 47 U.S.C. § 551(h)(2).
43. 8 U.S.C. § 2710(b)(2)(C).
44. Protection of patient-physician confidentiality extends back to
the Hippocratic Oath, circa 400 BC. For a discussion of the
extensive legal protection accorded to the patient-physician
relationship, see Daniel J. Solove & Marc Rotenberg, Information
Privacy Law 217–44 (2003).
45. Under the breach of confidentiality tort, doctors and banks can be
liable for breaching confidentiality. See McCormick v. England, 494
S.E.2d 431 (S.C. Ct. App. 1997) (patient-physician confidentiality);
Peterson v. Idaho First National Bank, 367 P.2d 284 (Idaho 1961)
(bank-customer confidentiality).
46. 45 C.F.R. § 164.512(f)(1)(ii).
47. Id. § 164.512(f)(2).
48. 45 C.F.R. § 160.102.
49. Pew Internet & American Life Project, Exposed Online: Why the New
Federal Health Privacy Regulation Doesn’t Offer Much Protection to
Internet Users 6–8 (Nov. 2001).
Excerpted and adapted from Daniel J. Solove’s The Digital Person:
Technology and Privacy in the Information Age, published in 2004 by
New York University Press. n
--
"There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to
whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is
impossible." -- Jack Vance
"Civilizaton is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce
"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net
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| User: "B1ackwater" |
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| Title: Re: Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment |
11 May 2006 04:44:17 PM |
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On Thu, 11 May 2006 12:54:32 -0700, Captain Compassion
<daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net> wrote:
May 2005, Page 20
http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/0/5218f4b86e3bc1a885257019006b268b?OpenDocument
Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment
By Daniel J. Solove
To live in the modern world, we must enter into numerous relationships
with other people and businesses: doctors, lawyers, merchants,
magazines, newspapers, banks, credit card companies, employers,
landlords, ISPs, insurance companies, phone companies, and cable
companies. The list goes on and on. Our relationships with all of
these entities generate records containing personal information
necessary to establish an account and record our transactions and
preferences. We are becoming a society of records, and these records
are not held by us, but by third parties.
These record systems are becoming increasingly useful to law
enforcement officials.
Increasingly TEMPTING is more like it. Nowdays it's SO easy
to gather and sift such information - what politician or
paranoid security type could resist ?
I will leave you with one rather odd perspective on this ...
who do you DEAL with most often, the State or the business
sector ? Do you spend your days worried about what "W"
thinks about you, or what your boss thinks of you ? While
the government CAN do a lot of damage with personal info,
businesses can do a little damage all of the time. After
20 years or so, business is WAY ahead of the State when
it comes to making your life difficult and insecure.
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment |
11 May 2006 06:56:30 PM |
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B1ackwater wrote:
On Thu, 11 May 2006 12:54:32 -0700, Captain Compassion
<daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net> wrote:
May 2005, Page 20
http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/0/5218f4b86e3bc1a885257019006b268b?OpenDocument
Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment
By Daniel J. Solove
To live in the modern world, we must enter into numerous relationships
with other people and businesses: doctors, lawyers, merchants,
magazines, newspapers, banks, credit card companies, employers,
landlords, ISPs, insurance companies, phone companies, and cable
companies. The list goes on and on. Our relationships with all of
these entities generate records containing personal information
necessary to establish an account and record our transactions and
preferences. We are becoming a society of records, and these records
are not held by us, but by third parties.
These record systems are becoming increasingly useful to law
enforcement officials.
Increasingly TEMPTING is more like it. Nowdays it's SO easy
to gather and sift such information - what politician or
paranoid security type could resist ?
I will leave you with one rather odd perspective on this ...
who do you DEAL with most often, the State or the business
sector ? Do you spend your days worried about what "W"
thinks about you, or what your boss thinks of you ? While
the government CAN do a lot of damage with personal info,
businesses can do a little damage all of the time. After
20 years or so, business is WAY ahead of the State when
it comes to making your life difficult and insecure.
Ya know, turdwater, you DO have a way with leaving out certain
uncomfortable points...in the US, business controls government. Illegal
aliens, pharma protection, bankruptcy laws, ability to walk away from
pension agreements, etc. Anytime Business wants a law changed, the
State obeys.
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment |
11 May 2006 07:45:59 PM |
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First, the soviets tapped into microwave telephony two decades ago
from their Glen Cove, Long Island compound and there was nothing we
could do to stop them. Second, labor unions check your voting record
and if you are not a Democrat will prevent you from getting a job.
Third, deeds, voting records and much more are public records in this
country, by Anglo-Saxon tradition. Fourth, Swiss banking privacy was
invented in 1934, when Hitler was already in power. Fifth, if someone
was looking into oil company records the left would not be objecting.
Therefore: Privacy and free speech are mutually exclusive and privacy
is a Euronazi concept.
- = -
Vasos-Peter John Panagiotopoulos II, Reagan Mozart Pindus BioStrategist
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
[Ignore webs which don't work with http://lynx.browser.org/]
[Regulation begets corruption] [Urb Sprawl confounds terror]
[Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
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| User: "B1ackwater" |
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| Title: Re: Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment |
11 May 2006 09:26:27 PM |
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wrote:
B1ackwater wrote:
On Thu, 11 May 2006 12:54:32 -0700, Captain Compassion
<daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net> wrote:
May 2005, Page 20
http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/0/5218f4b86e3bc1a885257019006b268b?OpenDocument
Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment
By Daniel J. Solove
To live in the modern world, we must enter into numerous relationships
with other people and businesses: doctors, lawyers, merchants,
magazines, newspapers, banks, credit card companies, employers,
landlords, ISPs, insurance companies, phone companies, and cable
companies. The list goes on and on. Our relationships with all of
these entities generate records containing personal information
necessary to establish an account and record our transactions and
preferences. We are becoming a society of records, and these records
are not held by us, but by third parties.
These record systems are becoming increasingly useful to law
enforcement officials.
Increasingly TEMPTING is more like it. Nowdays it's SO easy
to gather and sift such information - what politician or
paranoid security type could resist ?
I will leave you with one rather odd perspective on this ...
who do you DEAL with most often, the State or the business
sector ? Do you spend your days worried about what "W"
thinks about you, or what your boss thinks of you ? While
the government CAN do a lot of damage with personal info,
businesses can do a little damage all of the time. After
20 years or so, business is WAY ahead of the State when
it comes to making your life difficult and insecure.
Ya know, turdwater, you DO have a way with leaving out certain
uncomfortable points...in the US, business controls government.
EVERYWHERE business controls government. Machiavelli
described how it works centuries ago. The only thing
that's changed since then is the sophistication of
the methods.
However I usually leave this 'next level' stuff out unless
I run into a REALLY naive idealist who desperately needs a
bucket of ice-water poured down his trousers.
Illegal
aliens, pharma protection, bankruptcy laws, ability to walk away from
pension agreements, etc. Anytime Business wants a law changed, the
State obeys.
Good employees must obey the boss.
Of course, given this model of things, since business already
keeps vastly detailed records about everybody so they can use
the data to make more money - why worry about the NSA ? It's
really the same thing, just another branch office of Big Money
Inc.
.
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| User: "Captain Compassion" |
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| Title: Re: Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment |
11 May 2006 07:38:13 PM |
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On 11 May 2006 16:56:30 -0700, wrote:
B1ackwater wrote:
On Thu, 11 May 2006 12:54:32 -0700, Captain Compassion
<daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net> wrote:
May 2005, Page 20
http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/0/5218f4b86e3bc1a885257019006b268b?OpenDocument
Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment
By Daniel J. Solove
To live in the modern world, we must enter into numerous relationships
with other people and businesses: doctors, lawyers, merchants,
magazines, newspapers, banks, credit card companies, employers,
landlords, ISPs, insurance companies, phone companies, and cable
companies. The list goes on and on. Our relationships with all of
these entities generate records containing personal information
necessary to establish an account and record our transactions and
preferences. We are becoming a society of records, and these records
are not held by us, but by third parties.
These record systems are becoming increasingly useful to law
enforcement officials.
Increasingly TEMPTING is more like it. Nowdays it's SO easy
to gather and sift such information - what politician or
paranoid security type could resist ?
I will leave you with one rather odd perspective on this ...
who do you DEAL with most often, the State or the business
sector ? Do you spend your days worried about what "W"
thinks about you, or what your boss thinks of you ? While
the government CAN do a lot of damage with personal info,
businesses can do a little damage all of the time. After
20 years or so, business is WAY ahead of the State when
it comes to making your life difficult and insecure.
Ya know, turdwater, you DO have a way with leaving out certain
uncomfortable points...in the US, business controls government. Illegal
aliens, pharma protection, bankruptcy laws, ability to walk away from
pension agreements, etc. Anytime Business wants a law changed, the
State obeys.
So business is all that more worrisome.
--
"There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to
whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is
impossible." -- Jack Vance
"Civilizaton is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce
"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net
.
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| User: "B1ackwater" |
|
| Title: Re: Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment |
11 May 2006 09:30:24 PM |
|
|
Captain Compassion <daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net> wrote:
On 11 May 2006 16:56:30 -0700, wrote:
B1ackwater wrote:
On Thu, 11 May 2006 12:54:32 -0700, Captain Compassion
<daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net> wrote:
May 2005, Page 20
http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/0/5218f4b86e3bc1a885257019006b268b?OpenDocument
Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment
By Daniel J. Solove
To live in the modern world, we must enter into numerous relationships
with other people and businesses: doctors, lawyers, merchants,
magazines, newspapers, banks, credit card companies, employers,
landlords, ISPs, insurance companies, phone companies, and cable
companies. The list goes on and on. Our relationships with all of
these entities generate records containing personal information
necessary to establish an account and record our transactions and
preferences. We are becoming a society of records, and these records
are not held by us, but by third parties.
These record systems are becoming increasingly useful to law
enforcement officials.
Increasingly TEMPTING is more like it. Nowdays it's SO easy
to gather and sift such information - what politician or
paranoid security type could resist ?
I will leave you with one rather odd perspective on this ...
who do you DEAL with most often, the State or the business
sector ? Do you spend your days worried about what "W"
thinks about you, or what your boss thinks of you ? While
the government CAN do a lot of damage with personal info,
businesses can do a little damage all of the time. After
20 years or so, business is WAY ahead of the State when
it comes to making your life difficult and insecure.
Ya know, turdwater, you DO have a way with leaving out certain
uncomfortable points...in the US, business controls government. Illegal
aliens, pharma protection, bankruptcy laws, ability to walk away from
pension agreements, etc. Anytime Business wants a law changed, the
State obeys.
So business is all that more worrisome.
Absolutely.
Fortunately, the business guys aren't especially worried
about your politics - they're above politics. Their only
interest is in making more MONEY off of you. Alas, few
really micro-manage their politicians ... and therefore
the politicians have a lot of spare time to cook up
trouble on their own.
.
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