Intel Official: Expect Less Privacy
WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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