[Infowarrior] - 'Surveillance-Industrial Complex' Turbo-Charging Government Monitoring

[Richard Forno]

Published on Science Blog (http://www.scienceblog.com/cms)
'Surveillance-Industrial Complex' Turbo-Charging Government Monitoring
By BJS
Created 02/09/2008 - 17:01

The government is rapidly increasing its ability to monitor average
Americans by tapping into the growing amount of consumer data being
collected by the private sector, according to a major report released today
by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"The U.S. security establishment is reaching deeper and deeper into our
private lives by forcing the corporate sector to inform on the activities of
individuals," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "The
government has always recruited informers to help convict criminals, but
today that recruitment is being computerized, automated, and used against
innocent individuals on a massive scale that is unprecedented in the history
of our nation."

The release of the 38-page report, entitled "The Surveillance-Industrial
Complex: How the American Government is Conscripting Businesses and
Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society," marks the launch
of the ACLU's Surveillance Campaign, which is designed to regain consumers'
personal privacy rights by mobilizing people to contact prominent companies
- such as drugstore chains, insurance companies and retailers - to ask them
to take a "no-spy pledge" to defend their customers' privacy against
government intrusion. A list of suggested companies for consumers to contact
is available online at www.aclu.org/privatize [1].

"An important step in regaining control of our personal privacy is to demand
that businesses not acquiesce in being drafted into adjuncts of a
surveillance state," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's
Technology and Liberty Program, which produced the report. "If a big company
won't defend its customers' privacy, then consumers should take their
business to a company that will."

The report makes the case that, across a broad variety of areas, the same
dynamic of the "privatization of surveillance" is underway. Different
dimensions of this trend are examined in-depth in four separate sections of
the report:

* Recruiting Individuals. Documents how individuals are being recruited to
serve as "eyes and ears" for the authorities even after Congress rejected
the infamous TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) program that
would have recruited workers like cable repairmen to spy on their customers.
* Recruiting Companies. Examines how companies are pressured to voluntarily
provide consumer information to the government; the many ways security
agencies can force companies to turn over sensitive information under
federal laws such as the Patriot Act; how the government is forcing
companies to participate in watchlist programs and in systems for the
automatic scrutiny of individuals' financial transactions.
* Mass Data Use, Public and Private. Focuses on the government's use of
private data on a mass scale, either through data mining programs like the
MATRIX state information-sharing program, or the purchase of information
from private-sector data aggregators.
* Pro-Surveillance Lobbying. Looks at the flip side of the issue: how some
companies are pushing the government to adopt surveillance technologies and
programs based on private-sector data.

"Government security agencies all too often act on the false premise that
they can stop terrorism by tracking information about everyone, while at the
same time, private companies are increasingly collecting more information on
their customers," said Jay Stanley, Communications Director of the ACLU's
Technology and Liberty Program and the author of the report. "Sometimes
willingly, sometimes not, the private sector is playing a key role in the
push toward a frightening new surveillance society."

As part of the public awareness component of its Surveillance Campaign, the
ACLU recently released an online video to dramatize how new technologies and
weak privacy laws may over time be used to strip us of our privacy. In the
video, a pizza parlor uses its access to a wide variety of sensitive
information to guide its treatment of a customer calling to order dinner. To
view the video, go to
http://www.aclu.org/pizza/index.html?orgid=EA071904&MX=1414&H=1 [2].

"The amount of direct surveillance that government security agencies can
conduct, and the number of people they can hire, will always be limited,"
said Stanley. "But leveraging the private sector vastly expands the
government's capacity to invade our lives."

The report ends with six conclusions, including the need for individuals to
take action, the need for the legal system to catch up to a fast-changing
reality, and the fact that mass surveillance is not only intrusive but also
a poor way to fight terrorism.

"With this report we want to help people see beyond particular stories to
grasp the big picture," said Steinhardt. "If we want to preserve the privacy
Americans have always enjoyed, we need to act now."

The report is available online at www.aclu.org/surveillance [3]

To learn more about the ACLU's Surveillance Campaign, go to
www.aclu.org/privatize [4]
Source URL:
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/surveillance-industrial-complex-turbo-chargin
g-government-monitoring-15440.html

Links:
[1] http://www.aclu.org/privatize
[2] http://www.aclu.org/pizza/index.html?orgid=EA071904&MX=1414&H=1
[3] http://www.aclu.org/surveillance
[4] http://www.aclu.org/privatize