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Tag Archives: privacy
Release of CIA documents
NYT: "The Central Intelligence Agency will make public next week a collection of long-secret documents compiled in 1974 that detail domestic spying, assassination plots and other C.I.A. misdeeds in the 1960s and early 1970s, the agency's director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, said yesterday."
- C.I.A. to Release Documents on Decades-Old Misdeeds by Scott Shane, New York Times, June 22, 2007.
The National Security Archive separately obtained and posted a "six-page summary of the illegal CIA activities, prepared by Justice Department lawyers after a CIA briefing in December 1974, and the memorandum of conversation when the CIA first briefed President Gerald Ford on the scandal on January 3, 1975."
- The CIA's Family Jewels, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 222, Edited by Thomas Blanton, June 21, 2007.
Agency Violated Charter for 25 Years, Wiretapped Journalists and Dissidents CIA Announces Declassification of 1970s "Skeletons" File, Archive Posts Justice Department Summary from 1975, With White House Memcons on Damage Control
CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden announced today that the Agency is declassifying the full 693-page file amassed on CIA's illegal activities by order of then-CIA director James Schlesinger in 1973--the so-called "family jewels." Only a few dozen heavily-censored pages of this file have previously been declassified, although multiple Freedom of Information Act requests have been filed over the years for the documents. Gen. Hayden called the file "a glimpse of a very different time and a very different Agency." The papers are scheduled for public release on Monday, June 25.Continue reading
Rovere on Privacy (1958)
The technological erosion of privacy has been an important issue for a long time. Richard H. Rovere's article is as timely today as the day he wrote it almost 50 years ago, but his analysis of the issues is clearer, more complete, and more rational than most of what we hear today.
- The Invasion of Privacy: Technology and the Claims of Community, by Richard H. Rovere, The American Scholar, Autumn 1958 issue.
But the fact of the matter is that it is not narcotics peddlers whose privacy has been more efficiently violated by the use of the new techniques; the net has not been drawn tighter against society’s enemies — it has simply been spread for a larger catch…. It is one thing to deceive and trap a dope pusher by almost any means available, and quite another to tap the phone of, let us say, a philanthropic foundation on the chance of turning up a relationship between it and some citizen of a heretical turn of mind.Rovere wrote the "Washington" (later "Affairs of State") column for The New Yorker for more than 30 years, until his death in 1979. Continue reading
Turkle on Privacy
I'm always struck when I hear people say that privacy doesn't matter anymore and that "we're all being observed all the time anyway, so who needs privacy?" and "As long as I'm not doing anything wrong, who cares who's watching me?" I believe privacy does matter and that it is very important and that libraries have an essential role in ensuring privacy.
Sherry Turkle, sociologist, psychologist, professor at MIT, and author of Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet and How Computers Change the Way We Think (Chronicle of Higher Education, January 30, 2004), addresses this very issue of privacy in her fascinating new article in Forbes:
- Can You Hear Me Now?, Special Report by Sherry Turkle, Forbes, May 7, 2007.
Here is a sample:
When the question of illegal eavesdropping came up, a common reaction among the gathered Weberati was to turn the issue into a nonissue. We heard, "All information is good information" and "Information wants to be free" and "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." At a pre-awards cocktail party one Web luminary spoke animatedly about Michel Foucault's idea of the panopticon, an architectural structure of spokes of a wheel built out from a hub, used as a metaphor for how the modern state disciplines its citizens.... By analogy, said my conversation partner ... on the Internet someone might always be watching; it doesn't matter if from time to time someone is. Foucault's discussion of the panopticon had been a critical take on disciplinary society. Here it had become a justification for the U.S. government to spy on its citizens. All around me there were nods of assent. High school and college students give up their privacy on MySpace about everything from musical preferences to sexual hang-ups. They are not likely to be troubled by an anonymous government agency knowing whom they call or what Web sites they frequent. People become gratified by a certain public exposure; it is more validation than violation.
Thanks to Library Juice!
See also:
- Issues: Privacy
- Privacy and the "Terrorist Surveillance Act" (It doesn't authorize the government to spy on terrorists, it authorizes the government to spy on everyone hoping that it can find terrorists.)
- Will GPO guarantee user privacy? Can it?
Google + state government documents
"Google and four U.S. states have partnered to improve the amount of data Google indexes from their Web sites and makes available to users of its search engine." "The search giant helps four states get online data indexed and helps create custom search engines for government Web sites." Here are some different perspectives on the work Google is doing with state governments:
- Google courts government sector webmasters Infoworld April 30, 2007
- Google pushes U.S. states to open public records CNN.com / AP April 30, 2007
- Google Helps States Surface Government Information by Chris Sherman, Search Engine Land Apr. 30, 2007
- Googling state government documents By Elinor Mills CNET News.com April 29, 2007
Why Privacy and Confidentiality Are Important
Don Wood at Library 2.0 has a good, short post on Why Privacy and Confidentiality Are Important. He notes that "For libraries to flourish as centers for uninhibited access to information, librarians must stand behind their users' right to privacy and freedom of inquiry." If libraries do not have copies of digital government information, users will be faced with retrieving that information from government-controlled web servers where there is no guarantee of privacy (Will GPO guarantee user privacy? Can it?). If libraries want to flourish as centers of uninhibited access to information, they need to have copies of digital government information. [Editor's note 2/18/09: The link to Don Wood's blog appears to be dead. However, I found a copy in the Internet Archive. The link above has been changed to go to the archived copy of the page.] Continue reading
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