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The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that police do not need to be present to collect evidence from an Internet service provider. This case was about a man using email to engage in sexual conduct with minors; the police faxed the warrant to Yahoo. Having the police present is one of the checks and balances of the 4th Amendment warrant process that has been in place since the 1700s.
By the time the general public understands what these policy shifts mean to our system, the changes will be embedded. To expect no privacy is to lose the argument. It is possible to have security and still protect privacy and constitutional rights, it just requires more thought.
A secret US court okayed Electronic Spying under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The ruling (pdf) is by the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review and broadens the wiretapping powers under the Patriot Act.
Last-minute changes were made to the Homeland Security Bill including shielding ISPs from customer lawsuits over their (the ISPs) providing information to law enforcement officials, exempting cyber security from Freedom of Information Act scrutiny, and keeping confidential vulnerably exposed by companies to law enforcement. This follows the House tripling funding for cyber security last week. Check out the eyeball in the Homeland Security symbol.
EPIC sent a letter yesterday to Senators Daschle and Lott urging them to stop development on John Poindexter's "Total Information Awareness System" mentioned in an earlier bIPlog post. EPIC's TIA page mentions their efforts to make sense of this system. Check out the TIA eye symbol.
The cyber security public comment deadline closed yesterday by the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board for the 9/18/02 draft National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace plan. The report will present to the President in December, but is months away from open publication, making it difficult to evaluate how much consideration was given to public comments.
Posted by Mary Hodder at November 19, 2002 07:30 AMBob Egelko at the SF Chronical has a frightening take on expanded wiretaps, in reaction to the last couple of days events in the cyber privacy and security area. Quoting Attorney General John Ashcroft, "The Court of Review's action revolutionizes our ability to investigate terrorists and prosecute terrorist acts. The decision allows the Department of Justice to free immediately our agents and prosecutors in the field to work together more closely and cooperatively in achieving our core mission, the mission of preventing terrorist attacks."
As far as I know, there was no previous restriction on working together, the agencies were just territorial. It seems like the new computer systems and databases will allow them to work together without actually talking to each other, just sharing a lot of data through new compatilbility between criminal and civil intelligence gathers.
Posted by: Mary Hodder on November 19, 2002 10:42 PM