US Official Urges Americans To Reconsider Privacy

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, a deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people's private communications and financial information. "Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won. Anyone that's typed in their name on Google understands that," said Kerr. Kurt Opsahl of the EFF said Kerr ignores the distinction between sacrificing protection from an intrusive government and voluntarily disclosing information in exchange for a service. "There is something fundamentally different from the government having information about you than private parties. We shouldn't have to give people the choice between taking advantage of modern communication tools and sacrificing their privacy." Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, requiring a court order for surveillance on U.S. soil. The White House argued that the law was obstructing intelligence gathering.

Comments

I, for one...

[Grandiloquence]

I, for one, welcome the impending removal of our old tyrannical police-state masters. www.ronpaul2008.com

Re:I, for one...

[mOdQuArK!]

A lot of people aren't voting for Ron Paul because they believe the same things he does. They're voting for him because he represents the only politician who they believe means it when he says he's going to completely upset the status quo.

If he were elected, I'm not sure how much of his own agenda he'd be able to accomplish since he can only propose new legislation & veto things he disagrees with, but he could make it VERY difficult for Congress to pass things that there wasn't unanimous agreement about, and he wouldn't be giving the protection of the President's Office to those agents of the executive branch who are blatantly violating the Constitution.

Re:I, for one...

[intchanter]

After reviewing the summaries of the whole list, the only way I can see you justifying your claim of "whack-nuttery" is if you believe that government exists to allow you to force others to pay for your personal agendas or punish them for doing things that you don't like.

A big problem with that point of view is that it makes the government a puppet for whoever screams most loudly, at the expense of everybody else. And since the loudest voice is constantly changing, we end up with the worst of all worlds, more tangled laws and regulations than a reasonable person will ever read, and a rapidly growing government.

"Ron Paul's Congressional whack-nuttery" is the first real chance to break away from that in a very long time, and his claims are only further backed up by your link. I could run through that list of proposed bills one by one, if you like, but this really isn't the forum for that.

If you have another reason for believing that the misrepresentations on the page linked are evidence of a real problem with Ron Paul's record, I'd love to hear them.

Security Through Obscurity

[MankyD]

"Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won. Anyone that's typed in their name on Google understands that," said Kerr.

Try telling that to John Smith.

Re:Finding yourself in Google

[LiquidCoooled]

If google cannot find anything about you then you have misspelt your name.
If nothing comes up then you were switched at birth and can find information by typing in your correct name.

I only found out about this when I discovered my real birth name is inanimate carbon rod.

"Fundamentally different"

[Stanislav_J]

"There is something fundamentally different from the government having information about you than private parties."

The difference being that while I trust no one, I trust the government with the information even less, because they have the power to screw me over to such a greater degree.

Knock knock.. it's 1984 calling.

[Dutchmaan]

"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 safeguard people's private communications and financial information."

Yes, lets 'redfine' privacy to mean "we know what you do, we will just be responsible with the information"

Re:Knock knock.. it's 1984 calling.

[dgatwood]

Indeed, that pretty much constitutes the definition of "trust". You share secrets with people you trust. What these political trolls are asking us to do is trust the government---yet on nearly every occasion in the past, they have proven utterly unworthy of that trust. Hell, they can't even keep computers from walking away from Lawrence Livermore National Labs. If we can't even trust them to keep their own nuclear secrets safe, how can we possibly be expected to trust them to keep our private information safe?

This is literally the epitome of the phrase "wolf guarding the henhouse". The entire purpose of large parts of our Bill of Rights is to protect the citizens from our own government---to ensure that the government cannot do precisely what this person is asking us to let it do.

So my question to anyone seriously considering his statement is this: What ever happened to "I... will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States"? Are those mere words, or do they mean something? Because if we give in to this tyranny, we are saying that those are mere words---that the spirit of the U.S. Constitution, of the Bill of Rights---indeed, the spirit of America---is nothing more than a statement of naive ideals to be respected only when it is convenient.

No, this is not the time to cave in. Indeed, it is when we are most threatened that we must most firmly cling to our principles. It is easy to do the right thing when it is convenient; only the truly good continue to do good when it is hard. It is time that we as a nation stand up and tell the world, "This is what we believe. This is who we are as a nation." Are we going to be a nation of fear? Are we going to be a nation of paranoia, not trusting our neighbors and telling the government every time they sneeze in the interests of protecting ourselves? Are we going to be a nation of terrified little children who cower in our beds out of fear that the big bad terrorist boogeyman will get us? Or are we going to be a proud nation standing strong as a beacon of freedom and light to a darkened world?

A time of great tribulation is upon us. Everyone must choose a side. Will you choose the side of right---of freedom---or the side of wrong---of tyranny, oppression, and fear? Only you can decide. As for me, I choose the side of truth. To Mr. Kerr, I'm sorry if the Bill of Rights and the Constitution are inconvenient for you, but maybe, just maybe, that is because you're doing something you shouldn't be doing in the first place. If you can't see that, I pity you.

Re:Knock knock.. it's 1984 calling.

[Watson Ladd]

The US has rarely been a beacon of light. Look at Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama(twice), and Chile for examples. What makes this different is they've turned on the population of the US. Every one of these actions has been conducted in the darkness of government secrecy, against the will of the people. Until the government is responsive to the will of the people, this kind of stuff will go on.

I'm willing to give up my privacy

[m2943]

if the US government--president, NSA, CIA, FBI--are willing to give up their secrecy.

What is intolerable, however, is for government officials to have a lot of information on private citizens, but for private citizens to have little information on the government.

Attend Next Spring's Political Caucuses

[davidwr]

Next Spring, almost every state will have political caucuses and conventions which will set the state parties' platforms.

Attend your local caucus or convention and try to get elected as a delegate to the state convention.

Introduce resolutions that value freedom and privacy. Lobby to get them passed.

Send a message to Washington: Privacy is important. Anonymity is an essential part of privacy.

It's official - google is evil according to Gov't

[tomhudson]

"Anyone that's typed in their name on Google understands that," said Kerr."

Great! We should give Kerr a dose of his own medicine by posting about how "Donald Kerr likes having sex with a sheep", "Donald Kerr was arrested for soliciting sex in a public washroom", "Donald Kerr was indicted for embezzling $5 million dollars", "Donald Kerr was convicted of sexually assaulting an 82-year-old woman after tazering her", "Donald Kerr helped funnel funds to Al-Quaida", "Donald Kerr was found wandering naked in a local park, claiming to have been abducted by aliens, who then probed his body", "Donald Kerr is a vocal proponent of scientology", "Donald Kerr is president of the Washington Brittney Speares fan club", "Donald Kerr controls a bot-net of 250,000 PCs", "Donald Kerr accepted 'gifts' of $4.5m from Microsoft", "Donald Kerr wants to track people via bluetooth".

After all, Google is now a "good source" for Donald Kerr.

(Note to the humour-impaired - the above is fair comment satire directed at a public officials' political policy statements, and in no way is an endorsement of Mr. Kerr's positions on privacy OR sex with a sheep)

US Citizens Urge US Officials to Re-Think Treason

[NeverVotedBush]

And the penalties for it.

The Bush administration has shit all over the Constitution and this country. They have committed treason.

Government having private data...

[gweihir]

Yes, there is something fundamentally different: After they take away your rights and screw you over, they can get themselves immunity. Private businesses generally cannot do that.

This guy is basically advertising a surveilance state, were everybody has to trust the government without reserve. Not a good idea. Historically that has always lead to a catastrophy. Unfortunately there will not be any allied armies to free the US population. I advise to stop this now with all possible legal means. A free society has to live with a real risk of terrorism. That is what makes it free: People have the freedom to go bad. If you remove that freedom, you cause much, much more damage that terrorists ever could do directly. All this "war on terror" is really a power-grap in disguise by power-hungry people without even a shred of ethics. You do not want to be ruled by this type of evil.

Firefox add-on

[Janos421]

For those of you who want to protect their privacy, I've made a light Firefox add-on which generates randomly some queries on Google to make your search profile noisier and less exploitable. The queries keywords are extracted from RSS flows so you can personalize them. Moreover, the program simulates some clicks on Google search results (and ads).
For further information go on: http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuzzy-search/
It's a beta version and any comments are appreciated.

Apologies to Emily Dickinson

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd waterboard us, you know.

Re:The US is not the entire planet.

[NeverVotedBush]

"so this kind of thing only works to screw with American citizens and accomplishes nothing of significance"

And this is news? America's biggest enemy is definitely within. It is lack of education and an easily terrified populace that can be manipulated with a few "support our troops" and "with us or agin' us" slogans.

I think Osama bin Laden hit the jackpot with his 9/11 attack. He spent some 19 lives and a few tens of thousands of dollars and in return, he, through the current moronic, paranoid, and opportunistic administration, has thoroughly destroyed what used to be the most powerful and respected Nation on earth.

Re:US Citizens Urge US Officials to Re-Think Treas

[Tom]

The Bush administration has shit all over the Constitution and this country. They have committed treason. That's not what scares me (or any other onlooker from Europe or the rest of the world).

What scares us is that you shitheads let them get away with it. You almost impeached a president for lying about a blowjob, but you don't take down an administration that is actively dismantling everything your ancestors fought and died for.

No. You're wrong...

[msauve]

A right to privacy exists, and does not rely upon the Constitution, which simply defines the powers the people give to government.

This is affirmed by the 9th Amendment, although the right exists independently of it.

You're the sort of person for whom the Bill of Rights was added, because you simply don't understand the concept. The Constitution gives the Federal Government no power to intrude on privacy, therefore the right is retained by the people.

bills of rights are in their origin, stipulations between kings and their subjects, abridgments of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince... It is evident, therefore, that according to their primitive signification, they have no application to constitutions professedly founded upon the power of the people, and executed by their immediate representatives and servants. Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing, and as they retain every thing, they have no need of particular reservations...I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colourable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?

-Alexander Hamilton, Federalist, no. 84

Much US "case law," isn't law (in the exact same sense that our current money doesn't have value). It's not founded on any pure principles of ethics or logic, despite the claims of weasly lawyers and congresscritters, but upon convenience and authority through force. It's a history of progressive ursurpations of powers not granted by the people, and is illegitimate. The king has no clothes.
That some judge states "black is white" doesn't make it so, and simply weakens any legitimacy the law once had.

Re:Finding yourself in Google

[LiquidCoooled]

The scariest part of all this is that according to google I died in an industrial accident a few years ago.
It was a shock when i discovered this, but thankfully measures have been put in place to ensure it never happens again.

Ninth Amendment is critical to modern 'privacy'

[Kadin2048]

Although it's true that the Ninth Amendment is sort of the red-headed stepchild of the Bill of Rights, it was invoked specifically by Justice Goldberg in his concurring opinion in the landmark case Griswold vs Connecticut, which basically established the unenumerated 'right to privacy' in the United States:

To hold that a right so basic and fundamental and so deep-rooted in our society as the right of privacy in marriage may be infringed because that right is not guaranteed in so many words by the first eight amendments to the Constitution is to ignore the Ninth Amendment and to give it no effect whatsoever. Moreover, a judicial construction that this fundamental right is not protected by the Constitution because it is not mentioned in explicit terms by one of the first eight amendments or elsewhere in the Constitution would violate the Ninth Amendment, which specifically states that "[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people...."

In determining which rights are fundamental, judges are not left at large to decide cases in light of their personal and private notions. Rather, they must look to the "traditions and [collective] conscience of our people" to determine whether a principle is "so rooted [there]...as to be ranked as fundamental."

This opinion was shared by Justices Brennan and Warren, as well. (And I would argue that it turned out to be far more significant than the Court's opinion written by Douglas, which mostly railed about the sanctity and social virtues of marriage and really didn't get into privacy generally.) Although Griswold took on only the rather narrow issue of contraception, and even that only between married couples, the reasoning therein was later applied to other realms.

So although the Ninth does get mentioned far more seldom than it should, its existence is critical and quite central to the current privacy debate. It has not been completely ignored.

If you're interested in reading a layman's introduction to the 'right to privacy' as it has developed through several major USSC cases, I might humbly suggest my own "Right to Privacy Primer" (text version) which I wrote a while back and recently updated.