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
     Reprinted for Fair Use Only.




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