The Fourth Amendment Shell Game
The article that I will discussing for this week's blog post is The Fourth Amendment Shell Game written by Julian Sanchez of slate.com. The article discusses the new NSA reform proposed and enacted by president Obama. The NSA basically has an all access pass to all user data from all "electronic communication" from all types of services from telephone companies to social media platforms. In 1979, there was a court case Maryland vs. Smith in which the ruling was in favor of Maryland (the government) by taking records from a phone company claiming that using a public company means you are waiving your rights of privacy. The government has been using this ruling since the 70's to collect information on users from phone companies without the necessity of a higher standard for a warrant. Furthermore, as the technology changes, phone companies are using flat rate plans instead of individually billing clients which means the companies are collecting less information on its users on a call by call basis. The government now is mandating companies to collect this information which is a massive amount on the user, including location among other things in addition to the calls. I see a major problem with this on several different levels.
To start, I think it is extremely unlawful that companies that promise privacy are being surpassed by the United States government. When we sign up for a cell phone, a website, or even an app in the terms and conditions we are given a special right to privacy. Another problem i see with this massive gathering of personal information of massive amounts of people. In our day and age more and more people and companies are being hacked. Personal information, financial information, and other information is being stolen and used unlawfully. When the government is forcing the government to keep massive amounts of data it is potentially putting the public at risk. Another point that i would like to make is that in this day and age the government is essentially taking away your 4th amendment right if you want to survive or be of relevance to society. It seems almost impossible to be a functioning adult in the working world with out a cell phone or internet. It is almost impossible to go to school and be successful and studious without a lap top, cell phone or the use of the internet. (Look at the university of maryland, students can't even take this class without a lap top or internet). But the government is requiring internet providers and cell phone companies to give up all the information about our usage. It seems unfair and against the united states constitution.
After hearing about the Smith v. Maryland ruling, I think we would both disagree with the outcome of the case, that people essentially waive their right to privacy regarding phone call metadata. However, after reading Sanchez's article, the quote he uses doesn't quite seem to imply what he says it does, "...immediately provide the government with records, whether existing or created in the future, in the format specified by the government". This quote seems to say: whatever records you keep, you have to hand them over to the government in a format the government chooses. Format is not the same as content. For example, you could write the date 21JAN2015 or January 21st, 2015. Same content, different format. Saying the records must be provided in a certain format does not mean the content has to change. After looking at the Reuters article he references, the only further information that leads to his shell game conclusion is the statements of anonymous US officials. It could just be that I'm missing the complete picture here.
ReplyDeleteWhat he means by that quote if you read the whole article it means that the government is changing how it wants the companies to gather our information. He is not saying the different in format of the date is fine. He is saying that the government wants more sources of user information. Because the new phone plans are changing the phone companies are actually storing less and less data because they aren't billing on a per call basis but rather on a large unlimited plan. This is frustrating the government so now they are requiring the companies to track location, data usage, text message, and phone calls and any other additional content they will discover in the future.
DeleteI agree it seems like this is unconstitutional, but I totally agree with the argument that it's necessary in this day and age. The internet makes things so much easier in terms of communication and even terrorism. The advancement of technology allows people to do things they couldn't in the past, and I think it is right of the government to take the step to use the internet in order to keep a watchful eye. Another thing I've thought about is that the bulk data collection is in such massive amounts that its not possible for them to look too deeply into individuals. They are looking for suspicious and unusual patterns.
ReplyDeleteI think that yes it should be necessary to monitor red flags, which they have a system that monitors that, but i don't think it is necesarry for all of our personal information to be given to the government because its simply electronic.
DeleteAlexei,
ReplyDeletePrivate companies aren't exactly the innocent ones here. Newman writes about Google's repeated offenses when it comes to data collection. Not only has the company gathered massive amounts of personal information ranging from medical histories to sexual preferences, but it has lied to its users, given shady advertisers access to user data and profited, and has refused to cooperate in legal investigations. Things are not so black and white in my opinion: government abuses of power are a real issue, however this is not representative of the entire situation.
Alexiei- I understand his argument about what he (and others) believe the government is trying to do. My issue is that he doesn't prove his point. The quote he uses doesn't quite lend itself to the interpretation he suggests, and the Reuters article he references doesn't provide further legal evidence to support his conclusion. He might be correct, it just seems like the argument needs a little more documented evidence,
ReplyDeleteJessica- I think we would all agree that the government should use the internet to carry out national security operations, but doing so does not mean they HAVE to use the current bulk metadata collection program, they are choosing to use it.
ReplyDeleteI will have to.agree with you on this topic. The technical side puts our information at risk. We invlude our personal information within sites in which we trust will keep us secure. However, actions from our government will make it harder to ensure security. Yes, we do use the internet to connect to our online world and if the government surveils our every move then students may become hesitant in writing papers or blogs even that do not support our government's actions. I'm worried that if someone used their freedom of speech and their speech is one of disapproval of a program, will they become more highly watched by our government.
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