Transcript Government Access To Private Databases

Government Access To Private
Databases
By Kathleen Isley and John D’Alessandro
The National Security Agency
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Fighting against terrorism
Domestic Spying Program
Access to telecommunication companies’
databases allows for mass data mining of
phone and internet logs without public
knowledge
The Issue at hand…
In light of the possible threat of terrorism, is
the NSA’s use of the private data mining
industry as a surveillance tool ethical?
What is Data-Mining
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Data mining is searching through phone
calls, emails, online postings, shopping
receipts, financial transactions, and even
instant messages in order to retrieve
information on people.
Data-Mining: Not a new theory
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It is not a recent trend for information to
be stored and retrieved by large
corporations and other types of
organizations
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Retailers, for example, mine data on customer
interactions and purchase histories to
determine promotions or in-store placement.”
(High Stakes Data-Mining).
Data Mining
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Government is a top buyer of data mining
programs (Harris)
In 2004 U.S. feeral agencies engaged in
199 data mining projects (Hoover)
122 of which include personal information
(Hoover)
An Example: AT&T
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In January 2006 the Electronic Frontier
Foundation filed a lawsuit against AT&T
AT&T would not publicly deny or confirm
The lawsuit was dismissed in July
The information made public after it was
leaked by an AT&T technician
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On May 11 the USA Today reported that AT&T,
Verizon Wireless, and Bellsouth had all agreed to
submit phone logs to the NSA
Bellsouth and Verizon denied these claims but,
AT&T did not
Verizon would not comment on whether or not
MCI had worked with the NSA
In June members of the House and Senate
intelligence committees confirmed that the NSA
had compiled a massive database of domestic
phone call records
However, it was not released what these records
are used for, how they were complied, or if their
use was legal
Advantages to Data Mining
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Can help stop monetary crimes such as
money fraud and Identity theft.
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“Data-mining techniques regularly help
investigators identify credit-card-fraud and
money-laundering patterns.” (Big Brother 101)
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Helps to catch criminals and terrorists
without giving away critical information on
innocent citizens.
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Shopping records
Online sites visited
Recipients of emails and phone calls
Violation of Privacy
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“Part of what we mean by privacy in the West is
the ability to control access to our information
(qtd. in “Internet brings ‘increasing
bewilderment’ about concept of privacy”).”
Privacy is not concretely defined or protected
Expectations of privacy in the U.S. are higher
than most countries
Not as much privacy as you think
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A lot of information is already stored on each
citizen anyways
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These records include outgoing and incoming phone
numbers, time stamps, and other information, such
as whether the call had been forwarded, but not
names. USA Today reported that AT&T, BellSouth, and
Verizon gave the government access to call data
records starting in late 2001. The ambitious goal,
according to an unnamed source quoted by the paper,
is to put "every call ever made" in the United States
into the database.” (Hoover, InformationWeek)
The U.S. Constitution
The Fourth Amendment reads:
“The right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be
seized.”
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Time for a change?
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Constitution has been amended 27 times.
No right to privacy granted in the constitution
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Because the internet has changed so much, and is in
constant change, we need laws to govern its uses and
the people that are internet users.
Consumers and Users have never been promised
privacy on the internet, especially when they are the
ones giving their information away.
Not Effective
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Tendency to solve problems that already
occurred
There is no indication of what future
terrorism will entail
Popular Science: “Predictive data mining
to preempt terrorist activities hasn’t been
publicly proven so far (Schachtman).”
Things to consider…
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How much information can be extracted from
phone record?
This is all of the information known, what else is
going on?
What other information could the government
have access to?
Will the government always be able to have all
related lawsuits dropped?
We must consider how this practice of the NSA
could evolve in the future
Discussion Questions
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Imagine you are a worker at a factory and your friend
has a health problem that is slightly affecting their
performance at work, but could later on have a great
effect on their performance. Your friend has decided not
to tell the employer of the condition. In the following
weeks, your employer learns of your friend’s condition
through information such as shopping records, phone
calls, and internet sites visited. Your friend in turn gets
fired. Is this an ethical use of data mining? Is your
friend’s condition personal business since it is affecting
their work, or does the company have a right to know
about the health condition?
Discussion Questions
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Companies have been tracking information on
their customers and employees for years, long
before the government had access to the
information. For example, phone companies
have tracked where and to whom calls have
been placed. Is this an ethical act for the
companies to record their customer’s activities,
or is it the consumer’s private information that is
being exploited? What makes this an ethical act
or what makes this the customer’s private data?
Why not the other way around?
Discussion Questions
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Recently in the news, you have seen many
reports of possible terrorist threats avoided due
to information received from data mining. While
the government has claimed to have arrested
many terrorists from credible information, many
innocent people have also been detained an, in
turn, set free, due to faulty information. Is the
reward of catching possible terrorists worth the
risk of detaining innocent American citizens?