Intelligence Official: Say Goodbye To Privacy

[R.A. Hettinga]

>Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal
>deputy director of national intelligence.

Anonymity is a fundamental human right.

Cheers,
RAH
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<http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071111/D8SRJ1DO0.html>


My Way News


Intel Official: Say Goodbye to Privacy

Nov 11, 11:39 AM (ET)

By PAMELA HESS


WASHINGTON (AP) - A top intelligence official says it is time people in the
United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal
deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that
government and businesses properly safeguards people's private
communications and financial information.

Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign
Surveillance Intelligence Act.

Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer to allow the government
to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as
one end of the conversation was reasonably believed to be located outside
the U.S.

The original law required a court order for any surveillance conducted on
U.S. soil, to protect Americans' privacy. The White House argued that the
law was obstructing intelligence gathering.

The most contentious issue in the new legislation is whether to shield
telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for allegedly giving the
government access to people's private e-mails and phone calls without a
court order between 2001 and 2007.

Some lawmakers, including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appear
reluctant to grant immunity. Suits might be the only way to determine how
far the government has burrowed into people's privacy without court
permission.

The committee is expected to decide this week whether its version of the
bill will protect telecommunications companies.

The central witness in a California lawsuit against AT&T says the
government is vacuuming up billions of e-mails and phone calls as they pass
through an AT&T switching station in San Francisco.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, helped connect a device in 2003 that
he says diverted and copied onto a government supercomputer every call,
e-mail, and Internet site access on AT&T lines.


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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'