This came on another mailing list. It might make for some good conversation, especially going into the PRS Program. -----Forwarded Message----- _____________________________________________________________________ A terrorist attack on your privacy By Philipp Harper MSN.Business We are winning all the battles, but we're in danger of losing the war. Time and again, we have been told that the war on terrorism is being waged to safeguard the American way of life and the many personal freedoms upon which it's based. But far from protecting this national legacy, the war effort places those freedoms in jeopardy. Consider this scenario: You're on the Internet chatting with a friend. Unbeknownst to you, law enforcement agents are "recording" every single keystroke that you and your friend make, while keeping separate records of your phone conversations. Meanwhile, your bankers and stockbrokers are forced to turn off all your financial records. And when you leave your office, you return to notice that some items seem out of place; almost as if someone moved them. That's because they were moved using a law pending in Congress that allows for secret searches of homes and offices. For all the blows our splendid pilots and special forces operatives strike against Taliban and al Qaeda fighters on the ground in Afghanistan, the assault on civil liberties here at home is even more profound. The perpetrators of this constitutional attack are not religious zealots from abroad, but U.S. political leaders. Anti-terrorism legislation passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks — ostensibly intended to protect us from further harm — makes us vulnerable to our own government in unprecedented ways. It could affect how we live our lives Sold as a simple updating of law enforcement tools — made necessary by a new set of international and technological realities, it is argued — the USA Patriot Act is every bit as draconian in its own way as the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 or the legislation that led to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. If exercised to its fullest extent, the new police powers could dramatically affect how we lead our lives and go about our business in the United States of America. That may sound like hyperbole, but it's not, not when the full breadth of the act is considered. The problem is, most Americans consider the legislation only in part. They believe, because they've been told, that the law is directed at foreign-born terrorists who cross our borders to do us violence. While the law does address that threat — and in ways that many people find troubling, including the indefinite detention of non-citizens — it does much, much more. The USA Patriot Act makes it easier for government officials to fling aside the veil of privacy that protects our personal and financial lives from too-easy scrutiny. And far from applying to only to the foreign-born among us, every American citizen is at risk. 'Preventing terrorism' becomes an excuse The American Civil Liberties Union, which, like the Cato Institute on the political right, is alarmed by the bill's legal ramifications. (The fact that these two groups agree on an issue should give you a hint of its import.) The ACLU has identified the following provisions as particularly troubling. Lowers the legal threshold for obtaining wiretap authority. By asserting that intelligence surveillance is a "significant" purpose of a wiretap, law enforcement officials whose real purpose is to gather evidence of a crime no longer have to show probable cause to obtain wiretap authority. Thus, "preventing terrorism" becomes a catch-all excuse for launching what in the past clearly would have been unconstitutional searches. Makes it easier to access Internet communications. To gain a court order permitting monitoring of an individual's Internet activity, law enforcement groups simply must certify to a judge that the information is "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation." Once the required phrase is invoked, the judge has no choice but to grant the order. Again, the bar is being set well below the level of probable cause. Armed with such an order, investigators can determine any and all Web sites visited by an individual. Increases FBI access to sensitive business records. If the FBI is conducting an "intelligence" investigation, it no longer has to show evidence of a crime to obtain records about a person maintained by a business. It merely must assert that the records it seeks are relevant. By so doing, the agency can compel a business owner to turn over an employee's educational, medical, financial, mental health and travel records. Requires closer monitoring of daily transactions by financial institutions. Financial institutions are required to share the information they cull with federal agencies, including foreign intelligence services such as the CIA. The law also allows law enforcement and intelligence agencies to get easy access to individual credit reports in secret. The law provides for no judicial review and does not mandate that law enforcement give the person whose records are being reviewed any notice. Expands the ability of the government to conduct secret searches. In the past, secret searches were rare if they were permitted at all. A person who does not know he is the subject of a search loses his ability to take legal action to block it. Occasionally, law enforcement agents were able to delay notification of a search, but that was about it. The new anti-terrorism law stands this rule on its head. Now, the government is able to have its request for a secret search considered in every criminal case, not merely those involving allegations of terrorism. Creates a new crime of "domestic terrorism." Domestic terrorism is defined as conduct that "involves acts dangerous to human life." Under such a broad definition, even members of groups that exist to protest abortion, environmental or economic policies could be classified as terrorists. Moreover, anyone supporting such groups — say, by making a cash donation — would be subject to prosecution; non-citizens who belong to or support such groups would be subject to detention or deportation. Those in law enforcement who have had the will to more closely scrutinize American citizens now have the legal way. They have the technology, too. It was revealed recently that the FBI has developed a new technology — code-named Magic Lantern — that allows eavesdropping software to be installed covertly via the Internet. The software records every keystroke on the target computer. While no one is suggesting that the Bush administration and its allies in Congress seek to create a Kandahar on the Potomac, neither should anyone minimize the threat to personal liberty when ever-more intrusive technology is abetted by an overly accommodative legal posture. After all, the point of our new war is to protect freedom, not to see it diminished. =~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~ -- Zot O'Connor http://www.ZotConsulting.com http://www.WhiteKnightHackers.com
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