[ISN] Technology a threat to right of privacy Silicon Valley

Forwarded From: Putrefied Cow <waste@zor.hut.fi>

             Technology a threat to right of privacy Silicon Valley             
                             (Irish Times; 06/04/99)                            

   Last week, the US Congress requested that its intelligence services
provide a detailed report about a global electronic eavesdropping system
know as Echelon. They refused. Now congress is moving to make its request
law. 

   Echelon is just one of the emerging uses of technology that is eroding
a basic human right, privacy. The system indiscriminately monitors
satellite and Internet communications traffic using keyword searches in
the case of e-mail, and scanning for certain telephone numbers in the case
of mobile phones. 

   The report was requested by Congress's House Committee on Intelligence
and specifically asked that National Security Agency and the Central
Intelligence Agency provide an account as to what legal standard they use
to monitor US citizens. 

   Another system, currently in the pipeline is EU's Enfopol, a
specification that will provide European law enforcement officials with an
electronic back door into the computer systems of Internet Service
Providers and mobile telecommunications companies. 

   Furthermore, later this year, the EU plans to introduce new encryption
(a technology that scrambles data so that it cannot be read by
eavesdroppers)  legislation, which may affect people's right to exchange
messages that cannot be read by law enforcement. 

   Indeed, Internet and electronic privacy will be one of the biggest
issues affecting citizens in the next century. Unfortunately law makers in
Ireland, Europe and the US are staggeringly e naive about the effects
these new laws, systems and so-called specifications will have on their
future. 

   The problem is one of ignorance. Law makers often don't understand
technology and don't look far enough into the future to see how Internet
and wireless communications will touch virtually every aspect of our lives
in the not too distant future. But why the concern? Police and
intelligence services are only trying to catch terrorist, criminals and
child pornographers. True, if they are to catch these people they need to
be able to track their movements, ensure that they are not shifting large
amounts of money into offshore bank accounts and nip their next deadly or
grossly illegal plans in the bud.

   Surely, you couldn't object to that? Unless, of course, you would
object to passing a law that would enable police go through your
credit-card receipts without a court order, tap your telephone at will and
make a list of every place you visited, and every person you talked to
without proper judicial control. Because that is what these systems allow. 

   Increasingly people are buying goods and services on the Internet. This
not only includes a novel from say, Amazon.com, but banking, share trading
and even insurance services. Back-door access to mobile telephone records
will not only provide access to conversations but pinpoint the location of
the mobile phone and therefore its user. Furthermore, governments
mistakenly believe that their judicial system will protect their citizens
from abuses of these new methods of data collection and surveillance.
However perhaps it's not just the local police force that should concern
us, but the police force and intelligence agencies of foreign governments. 

   Take the Echelon system, for example, it was established under the
UKUSA agreement by the US's National Security Agency, and Britain's
General Communications Headquarters to monitor the communications of the
eastern bloc countries. While Echelon was designed as a system to monitor
spies, according to a recent report prepared for the European Parliament's
Scientific and Technology Options Assessment Panel there is evidence that
member-countries also use the Echelon system for industrial espionage. The
report states that British intelligence routinely collects information
such as "company plans, telexes, faxes, and transcribed phone calls," and
that the **NSA** provides weekly reports to the US department of commerce. 

   The report recommends that Europe adopts strong encryption technology
rather than restrict it and points out that it is the larger nations that
have invested in spying activities, leaving smaller nations vulnerable. 

   While few could object to these systems to apprehend criminals there
needs to be awareness of exactly what powers they give governments and law
enforcement. There also needs to be a way to ensure that they are being
used correctly. It has taken centuries to gain the right to privacy,
surely we should not throw it away so readily. 


-o-
Subscribe: mail majordomo@repsec.com with "subscribe isn".
Today's ISN Sponsor: OSAll [www.aviary-mag.com]