Listening In

AIR DATE: Wednesday, June 25th 2008
None
Are your attitudes about privacy changing with the times?

The U.S. Senate votes this week on a bill that may result in the most significant changes to the nation's surveillance law since the Carter administration. The fly in the ointment for lawmakers such as Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden is the proposed immunity for telecommunications companies who participated in the government's warrentless wiretapping program. Wyden said today he would oppose any legislation that included "blanket retroactive immunity" to companies that were part of the program.

As lawmakers debate this bill, we're wondering how surveillance laws and the changing perceptions of privacy in our culture are changing the behavior of ordinary citizens. One artist has responded by essentially surveilling himself, tracking his every move and meal on his web site. More and more teenagers are publicizing every mundane detail of their lives using technology such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. Meanwhile, their parents are able to keep track of kids' cell phone use with tools like My Mobile Watchdog, which bills itself as a way to keep children safe from potential predators.

Has being watched or listened to -- or thinking that someone out there might be doing so -- changed you? Do you share sensitive information via email or phone? Do you pay cash for certain transactions?

And do you think the answers to these questions are generational? Are your attitudes about privacy different from those of your parents... or your children?

GUESTS:

Photo credit: mag3737 / Flickr / Creative Commons

Tagged as: internet · law · nsa · surveillance

Dave: you might check Mr. Bruce Schneier's site at http://www.schneier.com/ . He is THE security person I still track regularly on anything in this field (one of those "previous career" things I still follow closely...). He is not only an expert, but outspoken on this matter. While you probably can't get him on this morning, I guarantee that a quick search through his Essays and Op Ed section will provide the biggest impact opinions you could leverage in this morning's discussions.
tpohara —
Thanks for this. Schneier linked to an interesting New York Magazine article about generational attitudes toward privacy:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/03/changing_genera_1.html
David Miller —
dave, the quote you used in the show was a great one: "So it may be time to consider the possibility that young people who behave as if privacy doesn?t exist are actually the sane people, not the insane ones..."
TonyWillamette —
(sorry about the length)

To react to your last question, it is _definitely_ generational. I think the generation that has never known life without the Internet is also the first generation that can have no expectation of privacy, given the advances in technology. The rest of us have to come along for that ride, regardless of our indifference, admiration, or outrage.

You've mentioned some of the Internet-related technologies already, so I'll just mention a few others. Related to the internet were advances in database technology, which made possible the really cool features consumers like (e.g. almost everything google does) and the money-making stuff that companies like (e.g. amazon.com's customer analysis, credit bureaus). Database advances made it practical to make sense of large volumes of any kind of data (do a search for "data mining" if you want your head to explode about that).

And coincidentally, that advance was accompanied by advances in computer disk storage that made storage devices so big and so cheap that its possible to never throw anything even mildly interesting away.

Accompanying those advances are technologies like RFID tags, which Walmart champions for inventory management but which finds a lot of other uses too, such as biometric passports. We've also seen the maturation of DNA fingerprinting, technology that's a mainstay of all of the crime procedurals on TV. We've also got GPS devices everywhere, just added to the iPhone but also part of most cell phones due to 9-1-1 requirements. We've got face recognition (remember the film 'Minority Report' ?), which most recently I've heard is being put into billboards. I read (with google's help) that there are a couple of hundred thousand surveillance cameras in London, capturing an image of the typical Londoner 300 times a day. I could go on.

The point is, we're past the point of no return when it comes to things that gather or report or carry data (RFIDs, cameras, GPS, anything with DNA in it, all the things Google can capture through our searches and its ads), and we've got the disk storage to keep it all and the software (databases, face recognition, just for starters) to make sense of it all in a thousand different ways, for hundreds of different purposes.

The combination of unlimited storage, ever-more creative software, and the various technologies we love to use (cell phones, debit cards, etc.) or other love to use to figure us out, rang the death knell for privacy around the turn of the century.
TonyWillamette —
This is a great summation of the technological changes, but it made me wonder all the more so what this means practically for the way we live, or the way we think about the way we live. If the "death knell for privacy" rang around the turn of the 21st century, as you argue pretty convincingly, who was listening?
David Miller —
One way it perhaps should change how we live was an example one of your guests gave, where someone said harsh things about a loved one that had done them wrong. If you don't want the Wayback Machine (archive.org) to document those harsh statements forever, save those things for your next dinner conversation with your best friend.
TonyWillamette —
First off, GPS devices do not transmit their location. You cannot be tracked by solely using a GPS device.

Secondly, face recognition cameras in public places are only there to monitor criminals within the system and to monitor abnormal behavior. Matching captured faces on camera from random people to the same person on another camera is far too inefficient and time consuming to be of any use when used on the public as a whole.

My preference would be for cameras to be placed everywhere as it is a huge crime deterrent and also aids significantly in prosecuting crime that does occur within a camera's view.
sedlie —
"My preference would be for cameras to be placed everywhere as it is a huge crime deterrent and also aids significantly in prosecuting crime that does occur within a camera's view."

Using this reasoning, would you also be in favor of the government recording -- officially, legally, openly -- every phone conversation as well? Do you think that would be both a crime deterrent and an aid in prosecuting crime?
David Miller —
I would not be in favor of the government recording all phone conversations as phone conversations are not public interactions. Catching someone on camera in public (or on your own property) committing a crime is fundamentally different than listening in on every phone conversation which occurs in private. Legal wiretaps that listen in for a specific reason with a judge's approval I have no problem with, as long as it's not a Bush policy that is allowing it.
sedlie —
Of course GPS devices don't transmit. Their contribution to a loss of privacy is only when combined with other technologies. RFIDs don't transmit either. I don't understand why you even bother mentioning that.
TonyWillamette —
I mention it because it is a common misunderstanding within the public. People think that if they have a GPS, they can be tracked. This is false. You linked GPS technology with that of cell phone triangulation for 911 calls. These are completely different technologies. So your point of GPS devices being within many devices and being tracked as a result carries no weight. If you purchase a GPS device that "phone home" your location, your loss of privacy could only be blamed on yourself.

As for RFID chips, which I didn't even mention, if one was to have an RFID chip on themselves and receivers everywhere, one could be tracked, but then again it would be your own fault for carrying the RFID chip. So in response, why did you even bother mentioning it?
sedlie —
The administration maintains that the wire tapping program was and is legal. If that's the case, why is it so important that telcom companies have immunity from prosecution? Why does there need to be new legislation passed for something that is already legal? It seems clear to me that the only reason for this legislation is that the program is and was illegal.
Mattew77 —
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated"

- the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution



"Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty. "

- Benjamin Franklin

I know they are listening - I embrace it. I write stuff about US history all the time - not opinions - history. I write about things like Operation Ajax, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the original October Suprise, etc.

I 100% expect to end up in some sort of camp someday. I am prepared to loose my life for the principals this country was founded upon.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson


PS - Its probably a good idea to invest in firearms between now and the election. I plan on doing so.

Chad Balcom —
Since they have existed I have always assumed that anything said on a public system like the internet is being monitored and that use of a cell phone is essentially like signing a waiver on one's privacy. You can always be seen by a camera somewhere if you're in an urban area and by satellite if you're not.
Bottom line - if "they" want to know something it's ridiculous to try and hide.
Orwell was an optimist.
John in Salem —
To comment on this topic in relation to the upcoming FISA legislation, I?m not surprised that the current administration and Senator McCain support immunity to the telecommunication industry and blanket surveillance of U.S. communications, thus violating our 4th amendment rights; what surprises and worries me is that Senator Obama also supports this legislation. My vision on who Barack Obama is will be shattered if he votes Yes on this legislation.
millakilla —
A long time ago I was talking to an Army Officer about this kind of stuff and he pointed out that there are so many laws that just about anything you do or say could get you in trouble.


This Bush administration version of the Total Information Awareness Program (TIA) does just that, they vacuum up anything and everything and something you said or wrote sometime somewhere puts you in jeopardy. So if you are anti- Bush or any other upcoming administration they can use your information against you.


So I suggest just carrying on with your life as if you were a Free American Citizen under a past Liberal government and expect to have to fight Bush when and or if he and his Big Brother Conservatives attack you.
Tom D Ford —
Listening in should never be allowed with out a court order in advance. As for CCTV as in London, I must say, I found them to help everyone be safe and crime free. If they are on the Max and garages, why not the streets. Just cannot be abused.
wascode —
I agree. Besides, I don't think there's ever been a right to privacy in public places. It as an example of pervasive technology whose power has been multipled in the digital world because of virtually unlimited storage.
TonyWillamette —
I think the question you keep asking, "have you changed your behavior" leads to a misunderstanding of the problem and possibly explains why this is not an issue with the public. The question should be "what privacies would you want protected if a "bad guy" became president. The separation of powers and the rights of privacy are based on the assumption that things can go wrong, not what's needed when everybody is playing fair.
dcarder —
I think the "have you changed your behavior" question was worth considering, though the issue you bring up is a more fundamental one.
TonyWillamette —

Comments are now closed.



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