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Steamroller + bandwagon = bad news
Nov. 14th, 2002 05:52 pmSlashdot reports that politicos, seeing how the Homeland Security bill is a guaranteed shoo-in for passage, have begun to tack on all of their own pet "pork" projects to the bill, and worse.
In the broad scheme of things, pork is something one can learn to live with. After all, construction of Yet Another Boondoggle Facility only hurts taxpayers in the pocketbook. Some other provisions, the ones I call "worse," hit both the pocketbook and one's liberty.
One of the "worse" items associated with the effort to create a "new" Homeland Defense organization out of "old" parts (and spending ever so much more money in the process, so that it would appear that Something Is Being Done) involves the so-called Cyberspace Security Enhancement Act, which (according to this analysis at FindLaw) seems pretty thin on enhancing anyone's security. In fact, according to the analysis, government "agencies will have the authority to obtain email or electronic communications without having to establish 'probable cause' that a crime has occurred or is about to occur. Moreover, this authority will not be restricted to law enforcement agencies, but will belong to all government agencies - federal, state and local, and perhaps even foreign. A high school principal, tax assessor, or a local public utility might be able to request sensitive customer data from an Internet Service Provider."
Under the act, "ISPs will have wide discretion to determine when it is appropriate to turn over our email and other customer information to the government. Terrified of government reprisals and confident of their ability to invoke the 'good faith' exception, a very low standard that is hard to enforce, they will likely turn over information at the drop of a hat."
What probably has some people in government drooling is this: "once a request for email or other electronic communications is made to an ISP, there is no requirement of notice to a court, an independent federal agency - or to the individuals who communicated, and whose privacy may be being violated - that email or other data has been disclosed to the government. Moreover, there is no provision for judicial review (before or after the disclosure) to determine whether the disclosure was permissible in the first place." Not only that, but this thing that is about to become law "does not include any recordkeeping requirement at all for data requests that are made."
Look for this law to be followed on prohibitions and/or restrictions on encryption, so as to make the process of wholesale spying on citizens even easier for all branches of government, including local high school principals. If this initiative follows other noble government efforts, look for people to be busted for various and sundry violations of the law that have nothing to do with the war on terror. ("Mrs. Smith, you're here on charges of child abuse, based on the contents of a email message you sent to your mother, in which you state certain facts that will be introduced in evidence at this trial. How do you plead?")
I'd say "Write your congressman," but we're the last people they want to hear from, now that the elections are over.
Cheers...
In the broad scheme of things, pork is something one can learn to live with. After all, construction of Yet Another Boondoggle Facility only hurts taxpayers in the pocketbook. Some other provisions, the ones I call "worse," hit both the pocketbook and one's liberty.
One of the "worse" items associated with the effort to create a "new" Homeland Defense organization out of "old" parts (and spending ever so much more money in the process, so that it would appear that Something Is Being Done) involves the so-called Cyberspace Security Enhancement Act, which (according to this analysis at FindLaw) seems pretty thin on enhancing anyone's security. In fact, according to the analysis, government "agencies will have the authority to obtain email or electronic communications without having to establish 'probable cause' that a crime has occurred or is about to occur. Moreover, this authority will not be restricted to law enforcement agencies, but will belong to all government agencies - federal, state and local, and perhaps even foreign. A high school principal, tax assessor, or a local public utility might be able to request sensitive customer data from an Internet Service Provider."
Under the act, "ISPs will have wide discretion to determine when it is appropriate to turn over our email and other customer information to the government. Terrified of government reprisals and confident of their ability to invoke the 'good faith' exception, a very low standard that is hard to enforce, they will likely turn over information at the drop of a hat."
What probably has some people in government drooling is this: "once a request for email or other electronic communications is made to an ISP, there is no requirement of notice to a court, an independent federal agency - or to the individuals who communicated, and whose privacy may be being violated - that email or other data has been disclosed to the government. Moreover, there is no provision for judicial review (before or after the disclosure) to determine whether the disclosure was permissible in the first place." Not only that, but this thing that is about to become law "does not include any recordkeeping requirement at all for data requests that are made."
Look for this law to be followed on prohibitions and/or restrictions on encryption, so as to make the process of wholesale spying on citizens even easier for all branches of government, including local high school principals. If this initiative follows other noble government efforts, look for people to be busted for various and sundry violations of the law that have nothing to do with the war on terror. ("Mrs. Smith, you're here on charges of child abuse, based on the contents of a email message you sent to your mother, in which you state certain facts that will be introduced in evidence at this trial. How do you plead?")
I'd say "Write your congressman," but we're the last people they want to hear from, now that the elections are over.
Cheers...
