The following is mirrored from its source at:
http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacylist.cfm?c=39
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Is the US Turning Into a Surveillance Society?
Big Brother is no longer a fiction
ACLU Technology and Liberty Program
January 2003
The United States is at risk of turning into a full-fledged
surveillance society. A new ACLU report, Bigger Monster, Weaker
Chains: The Growth of an American Surveillance Society provides an
overview of the many ways in which we are drifting toward a
surveillance society, and what we need to do about it.
There are two simultaneous developments behind this trend:
* The tremendous explosion in surveillance-enabling
technologies, including databases, computers, cameras,
sensors, wireless networks, implantable microchips, GPS, and
biometrics. The fact is, Orwell's vision of "Big Brother" is
now, for the first time, technologically possible.
* Even as this technological surveillance monster grows in our
midst, we are weaking the chains that keep it from trampling
our privacy (loosening regulations on government
surveillance, watching passively as private surveillance
grows unchecked, and contemplating the introduction of
tremendously powerful new surveillance infrastructures that
will tie all this information together.
The good news is that the drift toward a surveillance society can
be stopped. As the American people realize that each new
development is part of this bigger picture, they will give more
and more weight to protecting privacy, and support the measures we
need to preserve our freedom. Unfortunately, right now the big
picture is grim. There are numerous disturbing developments:
Video Surveillance
Surveillance video cameras are rapidly spreading throughout the
public arena, with new cameras being placed not only in some of
our most sacred public spaces, but on ordinary public streets all
over America. And video surveillance may be on the verge of an
even greater revolution due to advances in technology like Face
Recognition Technology and new attempts to build centralized
monitoring facilities.
Data Surveillance
An insidious new type of surveillance is becoming possible that is
just as intrusive as video surveillance (what we might call "data
surveillance." As more and more of our activities leave behind
"data trails," it will soon be possible to combine information
from different sources to recreate an individual's activities with
such detail that it becomes no different from being followed
around all day by a detective with a video camera.
* The Commodification of Information
Today, any consumer activity that is not being tracked and
recorded is increasingly being viewed by businesses as money
left on the table.
* Internet Privacy
On the Internet, our activities can be recorded down to the
last mouse click.
* Financial privacy
The once-firm tradition of privacy and discretion by
financial institutions has collapsed, and financial companies
today routinely put the details of their customers' financial
lives up for sale.
* New Data-Gathering Technologies
In the near future, new technologies will continue to fill
out the mosaic of information it is possible to collect on
every individual; examples include cell phone location data,
biometrics, computer "black boxes" in cars that "tattle" on
their owners, and location-tracking computer chips.
* Medical & Genetic Privacy
Medical privacy has collapsed, and genetic information is
about to become a central part of health care. Unlike other
medical information, genetic data is a unique combination:
both difficult to keep confidential and extremely revealing
about us.
Government Surveillance
The biggest threat to privacy comes from the government. Many
Americans are naturally concerned about corporate surveillance,
but only the government has the power to take away liberty.
* Government Databases
The government's access to personal information begins with
the thousands of databases it maintains on the lives of
Americans and others.
* Communications Surveillance
The government performs an increasing amount of eavesdropping
on electronic communications. Examples of the new type of
surveillance include the FBI's controversial "Carnivore"
program and the international eavesdropping program codenamed
Echelon.
* The "Patriot" Act
Just six weeks after the September 11 attacks, a panicked
Congress passed the "USA PATRIOT Act, an overnight revision
of the nation's surveillance laws that vastly expanded the
government's authority to spy on its own citizens and reduced
checks and balances on those powers such as judicial
oversight.
* Loosened Domestic Spying Regulations
In May 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued new
guidelines that significantly increase the freedom of federal
agents to conduct surveillance on American individuals and
organizations.
The Synergies of Surveillance
Multiple surveillance techniques added together are greater than
the sum of their parts. The growing piles of data being collected
on Americans represent an enormous invasion of privacy, but our
privacy has actually been protected by the fact that all this
information still remains scattered across many different
databases. The real threat to privacy will come when the
government, landlords, employers, or other powerful forces gain
the ability to draw together all this information. Several
programs now being discussed or implemented would advance this
goal:
* "Total Information Awareness"
This Pentagon program aims at giving officials easy, one-stop
access to every possible government and commercial database
in the world.
* CAPS II
A close cousin of TIA is also being created in the context of
airline security: Computer Assisted Passenger Screening, or
CAPS, which involves collecting a variety of personal
information on airline travelers in order to flag those
deemed suspicious for special screening.
* National ID Cards
Combinging new technologies such as biometrics with an
enormously powerful database, national ID Cards would become
an overarching means of facilitating the tracking and
surveillance of Americans.
What We Must Do
If we do not take steps to control and regulate surveillance to
bring it into conformity with our values, we will find ourselves
being tracked, analyzed, profiled, and flagged in our daily lives
to a degree we can scarcely imagine today. We will be forced into
an impossible struggle to conform to the letter of every rule,
law, and guideline, lest we create ammunition for enemies in the
government or elsewhere. Our transgressions will become permanent
Scarlet Letters that follow us throughout our lives, visible to
all and used by the government, landlords, employers, insurance
companies and other powerful parties to increase their leverage
over average people.
Four main goals need to be attained to prevent this dark potential
from being realized:
1. Change the Terms of the Debate
We are being confronted with fundamental choices about what
sort of society we want to live in, but unless the terms of
the debate are changed to focus on the big picture instead of
individual privacy stories, too many Americans will never
even recognize the choice we face, and a decision against
preserving privacy will be made by default.
2. Enact Comprehensive Privacy Laws
The US has an inconsistent, patchwork approach to privacy
regulation, and we need to develop a baseline of simple and
clear privacy protections that crosses all sectors of our
lives and give it the force of law.
3. Pass New Laws For New Technologies
Laws must also be developed to rein in particular new
technologies such as surveillance cameras, location-tracking
devices, and biometrics. Surveillance cameras, for example,
must be subject to force-of-law rules covering important
details like when they will be used, how long images will be
stored, and when and with whom they will be shared.
4. Revive the Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment, the primary Constitutional bulwark
against Government invasion of our privacy, is in desperate
need of a revival. The Fourth Amendment must be adapted to
new technologies; the Framers never expected the Constitution
to be read exclusively in terms of the circumstances of 1791.
Copyright © 2003 American Civil Liberties Union
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