This is one incredibly informative list that Declan quotes from. I'm subscribing. Check out the section on satellite intelligence used by federal and state agencies to detect code violations as silly as building a back porch without a permit. Yikes! -hedges- ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 06:35:43 -0800 (PST) From: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> To: politechat_private Subject: FC: Constitutional liberties newsletter from Free Congress Foundation Coalition for Constitutional Liberties Weekly Update for 2/20/98 Volume I, Number 1 Brought to you by the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation: http://www.fcref.org/ To subscribe to the Coalition email list, contact Patrick Poole at: ppooleat_private ***** In this week's issue: * FCC restricts use of telecomm records * Cyber cops caught by Net sting * Federal deadbeat dad database tracks your movements too * Feds and states using satellite photos for surveillance * 122,000 5th graders fingerprinted in Michigan without parent's permission * DNA database new weapon in police arsenal * AT&T sets up online database chock full of your personal information * This week's Endangered Liberties commentary by FCF Vice President for Technology Policy, Lisa Dean: FBI Director Freeh wants to tap your phone - and you get the bill! * Free Congress Foundation announces the formation of the Coalition for Constitutional Liberties ***** FCC restricts use of telecomm records The FCC has moved this week to restrict the use of personal telecomm records by telephone, cellular and paging companies for marketing additional services or selling calling pattern information to other companies without the express permission of the customer. The telecomm companies wanted to continue to use and sell customer information under a "negative option approach" that would have required customers to expressly deny permission to the company before they would have to stop selling off personal customer information. One problem with this approach is that the telecomm companies rarely, if ever, make customers aware of when their personal information has been used for marketing purposes or sold off to others. The new rules apply to local, long-distance, cellular and paging companies. The FCC developed these new regulations to protect phone customer's privacy and restrict access to personal information. ***** Cyber cops caught by Net sting The News and Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina reported this week that police officers in four states have been charged with engaging in "net sex" with an Illinois teenager while they were monitoring chat rooms for online predators, raising new questions about the practice of law enforcement personnel monitoring Internet activity. A 17-year-old girl encountered officers from Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Texas in various teen chat rooms, and email conversations quickly became sexually explicit. One North Carolina deputy sent nude photos of himself to the teen in one instance. Attorneys for the deputy accused the teen of a setup, but refused to answer questions about how the officer began to engage in criminal conduct that he was appointed to prevent. ***** Federal deadbeat dad database tracks your movements too Bad news about the new "deadbeat dads" law: Your name will soon be entered into a massive government database, even if you're not a deadbeat-and even if you're not a dad. That's because a new law compels every employer in the USA to help the federal government build a massive new database to enforce child-support payment laws: The New Hires Directory. The New Hires Directory was mandated by the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, and compels employers to report the name, address, Social Security number, and wages of every new worker to the state within 20 days. States then send the data to the federal government, which matches names against its "deadbeat dads database"-a list of every parent nationwide who owes child support. Noting that the law authorizes child support agencies to share the database with the Social Security Administration, the Justice Department, and even the IRS, Libertarian Party Chairman Steve Dasbach asked at a press conference held earlier this week, "Why would politicians who steal each other's FBI files even hesitate to trample the privacy rights of ordinary Americans?" Privacy expert Robert Gellman points out that private detectives already pay police and child welfare workers to illegally supply criminal, medical, and credit records, and warns that information in the New Hires Directory will become just as accessible. But the primary reason to voice opposition to this new database, said Dasbach, is because "the government has become so large and intrusive that soon our only protection against it may be the information that it doesn't have. If politicians really cared at all about protecting privacy, they would abolish existing databases-rather than creating new ones." ***** Feds and States using satellite photos for surveillance A January 27th Wall Street Journal article by Ross Kerber chronicled the growing phenomenon of federal and state law enforcement agencies using NASA and Russian spy photos for prosecution of minor crimes, including building backyard porches without construction permits. After the Revolution in Russia, the Soviet Space Agency, Sovinformsputnik, began to sell spy-quality satellite photos to raise cash for the agency. After Congress repealed in 1994 a ban on the sale of NASA spy satellite photos, federal and state agencies began to purchase satellite photos at an alarming rate. The Georgia Dept. of Revenue photographs all 58,910 acres of the state to look for illegal timber cutting. Last year in Arizona, Floyd Dunn was cited by the Arizona Dept. of Water Resources for growing cotton on his property without a permit. The Dept. of Water Resources regularly obtains photographs from the French government's SPOT satellites of 750,000 acres of central Arizona farmland. State officials then compare the images with a database of water-use permits to determine which farmers might be exceeding water-use rules - the process used to catch Mr. Dunn, leading to a $4,000 fine. A task force to study the use of spy satellite photos against citizens was formed by the American Bar Association last year. However, the presence of officials from the Dept. of Justice on the task force are leading some to question how strong the recommendations emerging from the task force will be. But the appetite by law enforcement officials for satellite images is growing so fast that private companies - including Raytheon and Lockheed Martin Corp. - are planning to launch their own spy satellites to meet the need of federal and state authorities. ***** 122,000 Michigan 5th Graders Fingerprinted for Tests DETROIT (Associated Press) -- Parents and legal experts have identified a problem in Michigan standardized testing -- 122,000 fifth-graders provided their fingerprints without permission. All fifth-graders in Michigan's public schools had to fill out a "Fingerprint Investigation Journal" as part of the science segment on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program. State law says that with few exceptions, children's fingerprints can't be obtained without parents' permission. "It's offensive," said Andrea Lang of St. Clair Shores, who learned that her 10-year-old daughter provided fingerprints for the test last week. "It's an invasion of privacy. Only criminals get their fingerprints taken." The fingerprint journal was merely a hands-on experiment designed to make the science portion of the test more interesting, Peter Bunton of the MEAP office, said Wednesday. "No, we are not fingerprinting kids and sending their prints to the FBI or filing them in Lansing," he said. The fingerprint journals, he added, are "thrown away, torn up, discarded, or sent home with the kids." "The law doesn't care if you throw it away," said Kerry Morgan, a Taylor attorney who was contacted by one parent." It just says you can't do it." Robert Sedler, a Wayne State University law professor, agreed fingerprints should only be disclosed voluntarily or in limited criminal circumstances. Bunton said he was unaware of the law. "I'm very sorry parents may have misunderstood this," he said. "We will not be doing anymore fingerprinting in a classroom ever again." ***** DNA database new weapon in police arsenal Scientists and law enforcement personnel think the use of DNA matching to identify rapists and murderers is about to take off -- growing "geometrically," as one expert describes it. In December, eight states began using FBI software to match blood, semen or saliva left at the scene of a crime with a DNA profile in a database. The FBI software allows states to pool their data online for the first time and thus identify criminals across state borders -- what investigators call a "cold hit." Within minutes of linking up, a convicted sex offender in Illinois was identified as the perpetrator of a 1989 rape and attempted murder in Wisconsin. * Until now such match-ups have been sporadic -- totaling about 200 nationwide. * But matches are expected to speed up dramatically, now that the FBI and state laboratories have finally set new technical standards for testing DNA strands. * Establishing a full-fledged national databank would be expensive, however -- with one expert estimating a cost of $500 million. Advocates of DNA matching contend this tool will allow police to solve in one week cases which otherwise might have taken a year or more. Moreover, the risk of misidentification of offenders would be all but impossible. Already, 53 convicts have been exonerated after DNA testing was applied to the evidence in their cases. Despite all the excitement from law enforcement personnel about the ability to search through the genetic records of millions of citizens with a touch on a keyboard, few have offered explanations how the collection of massive databases of DNA information does not circumvent the 4th Amendment right against search of persons without a warrant for probable cause. In addition, penalties have not been established for misuse of the database by law enforcement, nor have standards been set up between the all the states to determine how samples will be analyzed and categorized - leading many privacy advocates to wonder how much civil liberties will be set back by the use of this powerful technology. ***** AT&T sets up online database chock full of your personal information A new online service provided by AT&T offers complete access to your personal information, including your address, phone number, and even provides a map to your house - free of charge! Even if you keep all of your personal information to yourself, with a touch of a button and a connection to the Internet, anyone can track you down. You can find out how much information this site provides about you by going directly to the site at: http://www.anywho.com ***** FBI Director Freeh wants to tap your phone - and you get the bill! Endangered Liberties Commentary by Lisa S. Dean (Vice President for Technology Policy at the Free Congress Foundation) Last year the Swiss press reported that police in that country were using citizens' cell phones to track their whereabouts. What's worse is that law enforcement was using the telephone companies' computer files to do it. Americans reading those reports shrugged and said, "Typical Socialists. That will never happen here in the U.S." If you're one of those people, think again. A few years ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation claimed that because of rapidly emerging technologies, its own technology wasn't up-to-par with the telephone companies and for that reason, wiretap investigations would be difficult. So in 1994, Congress passed a digital telephony law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA for short. The law was to be interpreted as requiring telephone companies to ensure that its own technology was compatible with law enforcement's thereby allowing law enforcement to maintain its capacity for wiretaps. But that's not how FBI Director Louis Freeh saw it. He saw CALEA as a chance to expand the wiretapping capabilities of law enforcement. In fact, he proposed to the Federal Communications Commission that telephone companies be forced to add special hi-tech surveillance systems so that law enforcement agencies could conduct a greater number of wiretaps simultaneously as well as having location tracking abilities. Currently U.S. law enforcement conducts roughly 1000 wiretaps per year. If Louis Freeh has his way, law enforcement agencies will be able to conduct hundreds of thousands of wiretaps in the U.S. at the same time. The telephone companies objected strongly to Freeh's proposal simply because the surveillance capabilities the FBI requires them to install would be cost prohibitive, and ultimately reflect in consumers' monthly bills. Most importantly though, the telephone companies didn't want to become law enforcement flunkies, forcing their customers to pay higher phone bills in exchange for being spied on by a federal agency. Recently, a group of privacy advocates sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission asking it to reject the FBI's surveillance proposal because it directly violates our Fourth Amendment rights against warrantless searches and seizures. At the same time, the group sent a letter to members of Congress asking them to refuse the FBI its wishes. While Congress and the FCC are currently investigating the situation, Louis Freeh is lobbying Senators and Congressmen hard to have the ability to snoop on us at whim. And, he argues, that in order to do that, he needs a "key recovery" encryption system guaranteeing government access to potentially all private electronic communications. And it's encryption that's the key here. Without it, Freeh's snooping powers are somewhat limited. Because he believes that he has the authority to eavesdrop on our telephone conversations, it follows logically that he would believe he could spy on us through our computers as well. In fact Freeh is quoted as saying "We're asking for a Fourth Amendment that works in the Information Age." If that's the case, then Louis Freeh needs a lesson in constitutional history. Our Founding Fathers didn't draft a special limited-time offer that would expire at a particular point in time, or cater to individual whims or some overgrown government agency's political agenda. It's safe to say that we, the people, understand this and power hungry bureaucrats like Louis Freeh do not. The $64,000 question is, as its investigation continues, will Congress? ***** The Free Congress Research and Education Foundation is pleased to announce the formation of the Coalition for Constitutional Liberties. The Coalition has been established to: 1) To create a network of concerned citizens and organizations to update and mobilize against legislative and judicial attacks on our civil rights; 2) To serve as a national clearinghouse for information regarding the preservation of constitutional liberties; and, 3) To assist other like-minded organizations committed to limited government in educating the public about means to promote personal freedoms on the local, state and national levels. Some of the topics that will be initially addressed by Free Congress for the Coalition are: - Federal wire-tapping law - Encryption - Medical privacy - Biometric technology - Government surveillance - National databases If you would like to subscribe to our weekly Constitutional Liberties updates, or you like more information about becoming involved with the Coalition, contact Patrick Poole, Deputy Director of the Center for Technology Policy at: Free Congress Foundation Coalition for Constitutional Liberties 717 Second Street NE Washington D.C. 20002 202/546-3000 x. 316 ppooleat_private -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe: send a message to majordomoat_private with this text: subscribe politech More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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