[Politech] Peter Swire on Patriot Act, VoIP, and stored data that never used to exist [priv]

From: Declan McCullagh (declan@private)
Date: Tue May 10 2005 - 13:53:39 PDT


Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/2005/04/25/be-wary-of/


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [Politech] Privacy tip: be wary of Google's "personal 
history"	feature [priv]
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 21:33:57 -0400
From: Peter Swire <peter@private>
To: 'Declan McCullagh' <declan@private>

Declan:

	The Google "personal history" is basically one more example of
stored records that never used to exist.

	In family law and civil suits, relevant stored records are highly
likely to be included in discovery unless the judge is convinced that the
burden (on privacy or the cost of producing the evidence) outweighs the
benefit of accurate evidence.  So far in the U.S., discovery tends to win.

	As for DOJ, they love stored records.  The standards under the
Stored Communication Act are much lower than the standards for a wiretap.
What about when stored telephone calls start to happen much more often, as
is likely with VOIP?

	That was the subject of a House Judiciary hearing last Thursday,
where the so-called "stored voice mail" provision in the Patriot Act,
Section 209, turns out to apply to all stored telephone calls.  The
Committee was surprised to learn how easily the stored phone calls can be
seized.

	NPR All Things Considered story on stored telephone calls:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4612408

      Testimony explaining Section 209:
http://www.peterswire.net/swire.house.judiciary.testimony.042105.doc

      Audio recording of the entire April 21 hearing is available from the
front page of the Center for Democracy & Technology website, www.cdt.org.

	Peter	


Prof. Peter P. Swire
Moritz College of Law of
    The Ohio State University
John Glenn Scholar in Public Policy Research
Consultant, Morrison & Foerster, LLP
(240) 994-4142, www.peterswire.net

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