American Intelligence Test #16 – Search / Save: Are Both Privacy Violations?

If you want your privacy protected what exactly would you expect, require or demand? US District Judge Leon has decided that the government gathering and collecting personal data, in this case phone records, is a violation of the 4^th Amendment. CEOs of a number of our largest technology companies have requested the Administration to reform the US’s surveillance practices. Certainly this issue is an important one; and one worthy of much study, discussion, debate and judgment. Now there will be a lot of talking about the issue that guaranteed; but talking is not study, discussion, debate or judgment. And the public will ultimately reap the fruit from this seeds planted in our democratic fields.

Surely this is a simple issue, a clear and easy question to answer, and an item that all of us can get our minds around and be together on. Of course that will require all of us to see this question in the same light and come to the same understanding of what it means to be on one side or the other. So maybe to begin some thoughtful contemplation on this question would not be a bad idea; perhaps there might be a payoff in the end from knowing what we are choosing to do or not do. Given the simple nature of the issue this shouldn’t be a problem. We all agree to the answers to these easy questions, right? Or properly put, you believe that everyone else agrees with what you think the right answer is?

When you select what your correct answers to the following questions are then you’ll also be sure that we all share those same answers. However, if when you’re finished you are also sure that there are a lot of folks that won’t agree with your correct answer then that’s a likely indication that this is a question that requires a great deal of thought by even those who are sure they are right.

Question 1:   To invade your privacy is there a requirement for the government to know who you are? Must they have an actual interest in you as a specific individual?                      Yes    No

Question 2:  If a legitimate subject of a government investigation were to become connected to your path thorough life, is it an invasion of your privacy should for the government to collect information about them that by default contains information about you?                                Yes    No

Question 3:  If someone were to follow the garbage trunk that picked up your garbage, follow the truck to the dump and sort through the trash to pick out information including data about you; would that be an invasion of your privacy rights?                Yes or No
What if they did this every week?            Yes or No

Question 4:   The government has an enormous amount of data about everyone already (not like the phone records folks are in an uproar about). Currently this data is not used to seek out any indicators that would be useful in identifying ‘persons of interest’ who may be engaging in suspicious behavior. Is the possession of this information an invasion of your privacy? Remember to consider that there was a reasonable justification for the government to have the data for its original purpose; the question is whether just having it with no effort being made to use it constitutes a violation of privacy?                               Yes or No

Question 5:  The government engages in an analysis of a massive collection of data to determine if there is a connection between a known group of terrorists and an unidentified contact in the US who is assisting them in coordinating an attack. The records searched include every phone call made into or out of the US. Thus every call that you made is by definition included, but no connection was established.

A.      Was your privacy violated?                                                             Yes or No

B.      Since a computer did this, did it violate your privacy?               Yes or No

C.      Is it the existence of your records that invades your privacy?   Yes or No

D.      Does it matter who holds the records, and as long as it isn’t
the government then it’s not a violation?                                    Yes or No

E.       If I looked at every record of every person in the US and except
for one person (not you) didn’t know who the records represented
have I violated everyone’s privacy?                                              Yes or No

The Critical Question “X”:  If the collection is impersonal, detached from anyone in general, and not used in connection with a pre-identified individual without a court approved warrant is that an invasion of privacy?          Yes or No

So given the clarity of the issue the answers are obvious, correct?

You are done, and you can now decide if you think we will have a collective public agreement. If it helps, here are what I think the reasonable answers would be.

Answers for all questions are No.

The dimension of this issue that needs to be factored in is whether possession of data is a violation? The 4^th Amendment is a protection against unreasonable searches. While Madison would have some serious concerns about the government indiscriminately searching information to see if the government can find something to use against you when you are a pre-defined target that they are “after”, I can’t say that he would see searching for data that is not about you but about everyone. In this context, you are not relevant. You are nothing more than a fleeting non-match in a computer program; just another binary field that has no meaning or interest to the machine.

The issue of privacy isn’t the data here. The privacy issue is the intentions of those who have chosen to do a search. If they have the intention to invade your privacy then using the data is a violation. But without that intention is it?

Now I am not asking you to trust government. I would hope you wouldn’t trust the technology companies to the same degree. Certainly don’t trust politicians. But since we have to decide what our society is to permit and what it is to protect, don’t we have to be “eternally vigilant in the protection of our liberties”? So we have to deal with the complexity of the world. Don’t make this a simple problem to answer. It isn’t. And we don’t have an answer yet.