Attempts to reauthorize the E-Government Act of 2002 (116 Stat. 2899, Public Law 107–347, Dec. 17 2002) are being held up, apparently because of an amendment that would require federal agencies to conduct privacy impact assessments before using outside contractors to manage personal information.

• Amendment likely to prevent e-gov act reauthorization, By Andrew Noyes, CongressDaily, 12/11/2008.

The bill would also add language to ensure government information is accessible via commercial search engines. (See also: Much Government Information Still Not Searchable on Google, etc.)

Library Perspective. Interview with Emily Sheketoff, Executive Director of the Washington Office of the American Library Association, CSPAN, 11/06/2008. [30 minutes, Flash Video].

Sheketoff discusses federal copyright, privacy, and piracy policy and how those issues could be effected by President-Elect Barack Obama’s administration. Paul Sweeting, editor of Content Agenda was the guest host.

On Wednesday (December 3, 2008) the Majority Staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security hosted a series of roundtable discussions on the future of privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties at the Department of Homeland Security. There is a schedule for the event, "A Path Forward: Constitutional Protections in Homeland Security," here with a list of participants and topics, but that does not look like a permanent link. There is also a link to a live audio feed (hosted by a dot-com, not the House), but I gather it was only "live" since it does not work today.

I'm not sure of the status of such single-party, staff-not-members hearings and whether we can ever expect a transcript of such things. Is there a category of "government publication" into which this fits? or is this just another piece of fugitive ephemera?

There is a news story about the meeting here:

• Panel: Government data-mining programs lack oversight, by Stephanie Condon, CNet,
  December 3, 2008.

The panelists said that too many loopholes exist in the Privacy Act, government data mining programs are ineffective, and information-sharing programs are growing without any accountability. This "discussion" seems interesting and worth documenting somewhere.

OMB sponsors online discussion of privacy issues, By Nancy Ferris, FCW, October 23, 2008.

The Office of Management and Budget has asked the National Academy of Public Administration to hold a public discussion this month of health care privacy issues through an interactive Web site.

The “National Dialogue on Health Information Technology and Privacy” will take place the week of Oct. 27 at www.thenationaldialogue.org.

The site is also using Twitter (use tag #nationaldialogue) and Youtube (see: http://www.youtube.com/user/natldialogue).

"A panel of academy fellows will review the postings and produce a report in December with recommendations for the new administration."

As you probably know, early this month, a judge ordered Google, which owns YouTube, to turn over to Viacom records of which users watched which videos on YouTube. (Google Told to Turn Over User Data of YouTube by Miguel Helft, New York Times, July 4, 2008.) As the Times noted, "The amount of data covered by the order is staggering, as it includes every video watched on YouTube since its founding in 2005. In April alone, 82 million people in the United States watched 4.1 billion clips there.... Some experts say virtually every Internet user has visited YouTube."

What relevance does this have for documents librarians and government-information-using-citizens? Simply, this: whenever an information provider collects and retains records of information use it puts the privacy of information users at risk regardless of its own intentions. As an editorial in the Los Angeles Times said yesterday:

...the lawsuit illustrates how YouTube threatens its users' privacy simply by collecting and retaining so much data. Just because Viacom isn't interested in users' identities doesn't mean that other copyright holders, law enforcement agencies or aggrieved parties won't be.

Stanton's order is a reminder that websites shouldn't retain personally identifiable data any longer than the law or their services require. Google argues that the data enable it to improve its services, combat fraud and personalize offerings. Its approach, though, reflects an engineer's habit of hoarding information for the sake of as-yet-unimagined features, not the cautious practices of a privacy-conscious company.
-- Why is YouTube hoarding data?, Los Angeles Times, July 10, 2008.

See also

Will GPO guarantee user privacy? Can it?

Nevada Library Assn presentation: Privacy

Privacy: "I have nothing to hide"

Privacy and the "Terrorist Surveillance Act"

A new, in-depth story by Naomi Klein examines "Golden Shield," China's prototype for a high-tech police state. She says that China is building its systems with the help of U.S. defense contractors, that the global homeland-security business is bigger than Hollywood and the music industry combined, and that the U.S. Government is mining China's experiences for ideas for its own surveillance programs.

• China's All-Seeing Eye, by Naomi Klein, Rollingstone, May 29, 2008. "Like everything else assembled in China with American parts, Police State 2.0 is ready for export to a neighborhood near you."

Klein says that the United States is providing China's rulers with something even more valuable than surveillance technology: "...the ability to claim that they are just like us. Liu Zhengrong, a senior official dealing with China's Internet policy, has defended Golden Shield and other repressive measures by invoking the Patriot Act and the FBI's massive e-mail-mining operations." And, the Chinese rationalize surveillance of their own citizens the same way many do in the United States: "If you are a law-abiding citizen, you shouldn't be afraid... The criminals are the only ones who should be afraid." (See also: Privacy: "I have nothing to hide" and Privacy and the "Terrorist Surveillance Act.")

Klein notes that human-rights activists say that although the surveillance tools used by China and the U.S. are the same, the political contexts are radically different. "China has a government that uses its high-tech web to imprison and torture peaceful protesters, Tibetan monks and independent-minded journalists." But she also notes that Guantánamo Bay, the erosion of the Fourth Amendment prohibition against illegal searches and seizures, and the fact that the U.S. currently has more people behind bars than China despite a population less than a quarter of its size all mean that "the lines are getting awfully blurry."

What relevance does this have for government information specialists? As we at FGI have pointed out before, when the only "authentic" copy of government information is available from government-controlled computers rather than from privacy-protecting libraries, the freedom to read is eroded and the infrastructure for government spying on what you are reading is enabled. (See also: Will GPO guarantee user privacy? Can it?.)

See also: China's Golden Shield: Corporations and the Development of Surveillance Technology in the People's Republic of China, by Greg Walton, October 2001, Rights & Democracy.

Senators Ask FBI to Explain Flawed 'National Security Letter' to Internet Archive, By Ryan Singel, Wired Blog, May 15, 2008.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is asking FBI head Robert Mueller to explain why the feds sought records from the Internet Archive, a digital library, using a controversial administrative subpoena known as a National Security Letter, which is intended for a communications service providers....

Specifically, they asked Mueller if the FBI actually believed that the Internet Archive was an communications service provider. If it were, FBI agents could get subscriber records using an NSL under the auspices of the Electronic Communications Protection Act. But if the Internet Archive is a library, that subpoena would be inapplicable and possibly illegal. That would mean that the NSL should be reported to the Intelligence Oversight Board as a possible violation of law.

The senators are asking Mueller if the Internet Archive subpoena actually was reported to the board.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has withdrawn a secret demand, issued as a national security letter (NSL), that the Internet Archive (IA) provide the agency with a user's personal information after Brewster Kahle, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged the records request in court.

• FBI Withdraws Unconstitutional NSL Served on Internet Archive, ACLU. (Includes links to documents)

Since the Patriot Act was authorized in 2001, relaxing restrictions on the FBI's use of the power, the number of NSLs issued has seen an astronomical increase. Reports from the Justice Department's Inspector General reveal that the FBI has issued nearly 200,000 NSL between 2003 and 2006. Multiple investigations have found serious FBI abuses of regulations and numerous potential violations of the law.

• Internet Archive Challenges F.B.I.’s Secret Records Demand, by Grant Gross, IDG News Service, New York Times, May 7, 2008 (or Internet Archive challenges FBI's secret records demand, by Grant Gross, in InfoWorld).

In each of the three court challenges to the NSL program, the FBI has withdrawn the information demands, ACLU's Goodman said. "I think that calls into question how much the FBI needed the information in the first place and, frankly, whether the FBI needs this kind of sweeping and unchecked surveillance power," she said.

Centers Tap Into Personal Databases, By Robert O'Harrow Jr., Washington Post, April 2, 2008; page A01.

Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post.

See other Fusion Center stories at FGI.

Over the last six years the government has established more than 40 state, local, and regional "fusion centers" to integrate information and intelligence from the federal government, state, local, and tribal governments, and the private sector to identify risks to people, economic infrastructure, and communities, to prevent terrorist attacks, and to respond to natural disasters and manmade threats. The report notes that fusion centers "represent a fundamental change in the philosophy toward homeland defense and law enforcement" and "a shift towards a more proactive approach to law enforcement."

Fusion centers are created by the states and are largely financed and staffed by the states. Curiously, for centers that produce and control so much potentially sensitive and private information and that work in cooperation with the private sector, there is no one model for how a center should be structured.

Of note, the DHS Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE) program, which is being developed to "analyze large amounts of data, such as the relationships among people, organizations, and events" when fully functioning may have the ability to receive and provide information to the nation's fusion centers to assist with analytic strategic indications and warnings. Should ADVISE or other data collection and analysis programs become fully functional and accessible by fusion centers, some might see this as a devolution of national intelligence capabilities from the federal government to state governments resulting in the encroachment on individual civil liberties. Some are concerned that as fusion centers and the IC agencies codify relationships, there is increased potential for misuse of private sector data. It could be argued that such a relationship will allow state entities to act as agents of the federal government in performing federal intelligence community activities that violate federal privacy laws.

This CRS report includes over 30 options for congressional consideration to clarify and potentially enhance the federal government's relationship with fusion centers including drafting of a formal national fusion center strategy. The report examines, among many other things, civil liberties concerns and violations, and private sector purposes and roles in fusion centers.

• Fusion Centers: Issues and Options for Congress, updated January 18, 2008. by John Rollins, Congressional Research Service, Order Code RL34070.

Our thanks to Steven Aftergood for identifying and housing this report. See more of today's goodies here: Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and More from CRS, by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News (March 3, 2008). Also see earlier FGI posts: What is wrong with Fusion Centers and Groups seek definition of terrorism at government and private sector information-sharing centers.

Congress worries that .gov monitoring will spy on Americans. News.com
February 28, 2008

A new Bush administration plan to capture and analyze traffic on all federal government networks in real time is generating privacy worries from congressional Democrats and Republicans alike.

At a hearing convened here Thursday by the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, politicians directed pointed questions to Department of Homeland Security officials about their plans to expand an existing "intrusion detection" system known as Einstein. Among other things, the system will monitor visits from Americans--and foreigners--visiting .gov Web sites.

And, a related article:

House Lawmakers Question Privacy in Cyber-Security Plan. By Brian Krebs, Washington Post, February 29, 2008.

House lawmakers yesterday raised concerns about the privacy implications of a Bush administration effort to secure federal computer networks from hackers and foreign adversaries, as new details emerged about the largely classified program.

The unclassified portions of the project, known as the "cyber initiative," focus on drastically reducing the number of connections between federal agency networks and the Internet, and more closely monitoring those networks for malicious activity. Slightly more than half of all agencies have deployed the Department of Homeland Security's program.
 

This is a very useful and thoughtful piece that starts with musings on Facebook and privacy issues and addresses much larger issues that affect libraries and library users and academic publishing. This is a must read.

• Face Value, By Barbara Fister, Inside Higher Ed (Feb. 18, 2008).

Sample:

Libraries have always taken privacy seriously - not because it's valuable in itself, but because it's a necessary condition for the freedom to read whatever you want without risk of penalty. When the PATRIOT Act was passed, librarians checked to make sure their databases erased the connection between a book and its borrower as soon as the book was returned. That erasure, however, makes it harder to offer the kind of personalization, such as recommendations based on previous book choices, that the public increasingly expects from online systems. After all, it's what they get from Amazon.

...[W]e've barely begun to examine the unintended consequences of the Faustian bargain we strike when we share content through privately-owned digital domains of the public sphere.

Joe Esposito pointed to this article in a posting to the liblicense-l mailing list and he says:

As I was reading this, I reflected on an ongoing conversation with a friend of mine, a former Congressional staffer, about the growing political need for Google to be declared a regulated public utiility, like the AT&T of yesteryear. Too much power in the hands of too few: it's morally wrong, and socially dangerous.

I would just add to this that, when we rely on the government to be the only official repository of all government information, we are putting too much power in the hands of too few.  We are allowing the government to be the only entity that controls access to that information and the privacy or lack of privacy of all readers of that information. The solution to that is to build  collections of digital government information is libraries.  We have barely begun to understand the Faustian bargain we strike when we share content through a single government-controlled digital repository.

Fister is a librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College. Her blog is barbara fister's place.

Siva Vaidhyanathan has an exceptionally good article about privacy in the current The Chronicle of Higher Education.

• Naked in the 'Nonopticon', Surveillance and marketing combine to strip away our privacy By Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Chronicle of Higher Education, "The Chronicle Review" Volume 54, Issue 23, Page B7, (February 15, 2008). [no subscription requred]

"The Nonopticon" is a state of being watched without knowing that you are being watched or at least not knowing the extent to which you are being watched. Reviewing the book Privacy in Peril by sociologist James B. Rule, he says:

Every incentive in a market economy pushes companies to collect more and better data on us. Every incentive in a state bureaucracy encourages extensive surveillance. Only widespread political action can put a stop to it. Small changes, like better privacy policies by companies like Google and Amazon.com, are not going to make much difference in the long run, Rule argues. The challenge is too large and the risks too great.

Abracadabra! Bush Makes Privacy Board Vanish, By Ryan Singel, WIRED, Feb 4, 2008

The Bush administration has failed to nominate any candidates to a newly empowered privacy and civil-liberties commission [the Privacy and Civil Liberty Oversight Board]. This leaves the board without any members, even as Congress prepares to give the Bush administration extraordinary powers to wiretap without warrants inside the United States... Terms for the board's original members expired on Jan. 30.

 

A new ACLU report says that government "fusion centers" have not been planned in a public, open manner and that some are engaging in improper intelligence activities and endanger the privacy of citizens.

• What’s Wrong With Fusion Centers?, by Michael German and Jay Stanley, American Civil Liberties Union, December 2007.

This report is intended to serve as a primer that explains what fusion centers are, and how and why they were created. It details potential problems fusion centers present to the privacy and civil liberties of ordinary Americans, including: Ambiguous Lines of Authority... Private Sector Participation... Military Participation... Data Mining... and Excessive Secrecy.

See also: Groups seek definition of terrorism at government and private sector information-sharing centers.