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.

I, for one...

[Grandiloquence (1180099)]

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

Awesome

[cgenman (325138)]

Isn't it great how with one little change of definition, "privacy" can now mean "we keep private everything we know about you, which is everything."

This guy really should be fired. Out of a cannon. At a wall.

Re:I, for one...

[mOdQuArK! (87332)]

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...

[Maxo-Texas (864189)]

As long as 50% of the voters think it is murder, then there is a basic disagreement about what is the basic civil right (right to live or right to choose).

The basic organization of the US is to recognize that people disagree- and yet we can work together. When you force every single damn issue to the national level, then you leave people no chance to move away from areas they disagree with and they start getting pretty pissy and intolerant.

Re:I, for one...

[Cerebus (10185)]

Here's a great run-down of Ron Paul's Congressional whack-nuttery:

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/11/ron-pauls-record-in-congress.html [blogspot.com]

Re:I, for one...

[intchanter (1035396)]

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.

Re:I, for one...

[Loki_1929 (550940)]

I'm sure there must be some reason why I can't tell whether that blog poster (and yes, the 'site' cited is actually nothing more than the incoherent ramblings of yet another of 10 trillion 'bloggers') is far left wing or far right wing. The only thing I can tell for sure is that they're unstable at room temperature.

Let's get a few things straight:

1) Refusing to finance a given decision does NOT mean you are against having choice in the matter
2) Shifting power from the Federal government to the state governments does NOT equal fascism
3) Refusing to subsidize something does NOT equate to being against it
4) Being thrifty when it's not your money does NOT equate to being a religious whackjob
5) The US Consitution still defines the role of the Federal government. Since the Federal government has proven many times over that it only does well the jobs laid out for it by the US Constitution, it makes sense that we restrict its roles thereto.

Ron Paul isn't a nut - he's just thinking far beyond the average member of the body politic.

Security Through Obscurity

[MankyD (567984)]

"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.

Apologies to Emily Dickinson

[by 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:Security Through Obscurity

[Stanislav_J (947290)]

I have yet to see anything turn up relating to me via my legal name (and variations) on Google. I don't know whether to be relieved or insulted.....

Basically, the more public the life you lead, the more apt you are to be found on Google. I've led a very hermit-like life and am very, very careful about who gets my personal information and why. Google knows me not -- I've never been the subject of or quoted in any news stories, I have not worked for any company or belonged to any organization that might put a staff or membership list online, etc., etc. Even if you try the various public records searches, my name will pop up occasionally, but 95% of what turns up is outdated information anyway, and what is there could be found without the Internet via a trip to the courthouse. I am well aware that the tide is turning (has turned) and that you can't totally hide in this day and age. But at the same time, that doesn't mean I'm going to hand over the details of my life on a silver platter. I understand that if someone really wanted to find me, they could. But at least they will have to work hard to do so.

"Fundamentally different"

[Stanislav_J (947290)]

"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.

Re:

[NormalVisual (565491)]

And they're much less accountable for it, too.

Re:"Fundamentally different"

[Kythe (4779)]

What Mr. Kerr seems to miss is that the reason for government being fundamentally different than private companies is checks and balances.

Private companies answer only to a limited number of customers; government (in theory) answers to all the voting population.

Of course, when oversight (the checks and balances) is removed, government no longer answers to the people, and the potential for harm is exponentially greater, simply because the amount of potential power is greater.

Government CAN be on the side of the angels. But without checks such as anonymity, it can be democracy and freedom's worst enemy.

Knock knock.. it's 1984 calling.

[Dutchmaan (442553)]

"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 (11270)]

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 (955755)]

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 (1140797)]

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.

Is this guy joking?

[rolfwind (528248)]

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

Definitely. For one, I can choose not to interact with certain private parties if they piss me off. But I probably can't choose to ignore the government and have to interact with it on some level.

Also, private parties can't demand I hand over certain private information -- sure, they might decide not to do business with me, but the government seems to think it's priviledged to anything and everything since the Patriot Act. Good luck turning them down.

Now it's no longer based on evidence that a crime was done -- we are welcomed to the pre-emptive society. Pre-emptive wars. Pre-emptive invasion of my privacy (without warrant) based on crimes that might happen. I'm just waiting to be pre-emptively thrown in jail.

I find it interesting that this government official is trying to sell us on the government safeguarding our information. HAH! What a joke.

Here's an example of Kerr's logic

[schwaang (667808)]

FTA:

Kerr said at an October intelligence conference in San Antonio that he finds concerns that the government may be listening in odd when people are ``perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an (Internet service provider) who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the United States to handle their data.''

Really, I don't need to read beyond this. Does the US have a privacy problem with personal data held by corporations without regulation? Yes. Does the US have a privacy problem with novel government surveillance methods without (serious) oversight? Hell Yes. Can one be used to excuse the other in any way shape or form? Hell no!

This guy should not be the standard bearer for the dialog that the US needs to have over privacy in the age of information technology.

Re:Here's an example of Kerr's logic

[Shihar (153932)]

Really, I don't need to read beyond this. Does the US have a privacy problem with personal data held by corporations without regulation? Yes. Does the US have a privacy problem with novel government surveillance methods without (serious) oversight? Hell Yes. Can one be used to excuse the other in any way shape or form? Hell no!

It is worse than that. I don't like private companies to have piles of information on me. I don't like telemarketing spam. That said, what a private corporation can do with my personal information is a whole lot less than what the government can do. So Google knows what sort of pr0n I like and that I am looking for a job in another industry. Great. They can target ads for asian midget preggo lesbian white sock fetish porn at me while serving up ads for opening as a toll booth collector.

The government on the other hand can do far worse to me. The government can realize that I am a fan of a radical centrist group and start keeping tabs on my every move. While they can't prove that I have done anything wrong in terms of being a radical terrorist, they can easily keep track of the laws I break and hit me all at once for them. As they track my GPS they can dish out a fine each time I touch above the speed limit, charge me the full $250,000 per son each time I let a friend borrow a CD, castrate me for drinking on the sabbath, toss me in jail for illegal drug possession when I pop one of my girlfriends anti-allergy pills, and in general make my life a miserable hell.

Attend Next Spring's Political Caucuses

[davidwr (791652)]

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.

Legal terms to promote privacy

[Benjamin_Wright (1168679)]

The article notes that kids reveal much private information about themselves on myspace and facebook. Some fear that this information can damage a kids employment prospects. Heres an idea: People could post legal terms of service on their social networing pages declaring that employers and prospective employers are forbidden from looking at or copying from the pages. Such terms would be like No Trespassing signs on land. Some case law supports the notion that terms posted on a web site can restrict the right of visitors to gather information off the site. Arguably, if an employer grabs information off of a site in violation of posted terms, and that leads to termination of an employee, then the employee could sue the employer for violating the terms of the web site. Even if the terms are not legally binding on the employer, they could be ethically binding.

Surveillance on U.S. soil

[sqrt(2) (786011)]

The White House argued that the law was obstructing intelligence gathering.

Of course it is! That's entirely the point. It's not supposed to be easy for the government to carry out espionage on its own soil. In the course of an investigation there will be a lot of information, records, conversations, and correspondence between the persons being investigated and regular citizens. When you do your espianage on American soil, the bystanders are AMERICAN CITIZENS, protected from being spied on. It should be very difficult for the government to do those types of activities. Just because the white house thinks they need a blank check to do what ever they want in the name of security doesn't mean we should give it to them.

Also, about googling your own name; I just did that and although there were over 1.5 million results, none of them were about me as far as I could tell :(
I guess I should be relieved, although I'm kind of disappointed that I'm not important enough to have my privacy violated.

He does have a point

[OeLeWaPpErKe (412765)]

A detailed search on google will reveal WAY too much info on people. Certainly more than you'd want released to just anyone.

More than this ... laws will not change this fact ... this sucks. If google can build databases of people le, why can't the US govt ? At least US govt has this freedom of info act. Google obeys only the laws they truly have to.

Outlawing google also seems like a stupid thing to do.

He just makes the point that we can't have it both ways. We can't have a searchable internet and the privacy standards of 1960. It just doesn't compute.

Barry

[pilsner.urquell (734632)]

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity.
-- Donald Kerr

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
-- Barry Goldwater

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

[tomhudson (43916)]

"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 (1041088)]

And the penalties for it.

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

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

[Tom (822)]

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.

Government having private data...

[gweihir (88907)]

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.

 

This man is a coward.

[postbigbang (761081)]

On the New Hampshire auto license plates reads one of my favorite sayings: Live Free, or Die. This man would rather capitulate, and is therefore lost.

We will struggle, those that believe in liberty and freedom, against the tides that would try to drown us with rationalisms, excuses, and the madness of fealty to the corrupt and mindless sycophants of government.

There was a reason the founding fathers worded their documents they way that they did-- there was another King George that tried to shove fealty down our throats. This minor duke in his administration would have us believe that liberty and freedom != anonymity. He is wrong.

Re:This man is a coward.

[postbigbang (761081)]

Today is November 11, the traditional Veteran's Day. Let me tell you of my ancestors, who didn't capitulate, and were POWs, were killed, shot down over Europe or the Pacific; these ancestors understanood what they were fighting for- going all the way back to 1779 in Pennsylvania, fighting Tories. Or let me tell you about the regiments that went south of the Ohio to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. Perhaps my late grandfather, who was an adjutant in WWI could've told you about liberty, or an uncle that went to Europe in WWII, despite his debilitating polio. Or an other uncle that had most of his stomach blown away with ack-ack flak. Both of them savor(ed) their liberty, and both were willing to without hesitation, and die for it. Another uncle did.

Let me tell you about the other heros that also protested the Viet Nam War for the travesty it had become as others were conscripted (and enslaved) to fight. Or perhaps those that looked with incredulity at the hoaxed evidence of 'WMD' in Iraq-- knowing that many thousands of soldier lives would be lost in vain, not to mention Afgani and Iraqi lives-- and the lives of US allies.

Let me tell you about having principles, not a squishy bowl of jelly for guts in the face of those that would compromise liberty, civil rights, and freedom with responsibility for these.

Many people have, and will understand the value of liberty, once lost. Should you wish subjugation, sit still and don't do anything.

security?

[rev_sanchez (691443)]

Bad terrorists kill thousands. Bad government kill millions. Their fear mongering and our cowardice are poisoning our nation's leadership.

Firefox add-on

[Janos421 (1136335)]

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/ [sourceforge.net]
It's a beta version and any comments are appreciated.

Re:Firefox add-on

[DaleGlass (1068434)]

Have you seen Bruce Schneier's opinion [schneier.com] on your plugin?

If your plugin still works as described, then I'd say it's very imperfect. I don't think the approach is completely wrong though, but it could use improvements.

This reminds me of the old idea of randomly embedding key words like "president", "nuke", etc in mail and usenet posts, to mess with with Echelon/Carnivore. A mail with random key words inserted in places would work for triggering the data gathering, but look obviously unrelated to a human who reads the message, as the extra stuff would be inserted in nonsensical places.

Now if your plugin happens to google for "raping virgins" how will you prove this wasn't a real search you tried to hide among a heap of a lot of grammatically incorrect ones? Searches that make grammatical sense will be a minority, and with a list like that there's a high chance that they won't be things normal people google about.

Then there's that it doesn't seem it actually follows any links from the searches, so if the ISP is doing logging it's easy enough to tell what is being actually used.

This seems to me like going to a library, and borrowing 20 books at once, including the Anarchist Cookbook and Mein Kampf, to try hide your actual and much more harmless interest in reading a book on say, Neopaganism. If your history is checked, all that extra stuff you didn't read isn't going to help you any, because there's no way to tell that most of your history was intended to be padding and you haven't even opened it.

Need link to StreetView of Kerr's house

[Animats (122034)]

Is Donald Kerr's house in Google StreetView? What's the link?

We do need to redefine privacy - with cryptography

[vkg (158234)]

At the end of the day, you can't use somebody else's computer, and expect privacy. You can't use somebody else's network, and expect privacy. If I jack into your ethernet hub, you're going to have the possibility of reading my traffic unless I use HTTPS / SSH / GPG etc.

That's our real relationship with Comcast, with AT&T and so on. They're snoopy sysadmins on a gigantic scale, and we should treat them like snoopy sysadmins of any other kind: encrypt and tunnel all traffic, and push back technically as hard as we can. P2P has led the way on this, but it's really time we stopped dinking around and started defaulting to HTTPS even on sites like Slashdot.

On the broader level, I did some work on this (ironically, the first draft of the work was done for the USG.)

http://guptaoption.com/4.SIAB-ISA.php [guptaoption.com]

It's a system - built on open source software for the most part (and the remaining stuff could be built) - which provides for a rock solid personal identity card which has three critical properties:

* all your personal data is encrypted, and only a court can decrypt it
* the card has no unique identifiers on it, and you have dozens of cards (that you leave with institutions like your bank to "anchor" your account)
* it's dirt cheap and secure enough to entrust with biometric data like DNA fingerprints.

Concerted effort to produce an open alternative which offers strong security *AND* strong privacy by carrying the debate to a higher technical level than schemes like RealID is long past due.

Phil Zimmerman settled the encryption issue for most of a generation with PGP. It's time for us to consider doing the same for general communications snooping, and then moving out into areas like the poor protection of identity in systems like the Social Security Number-based credit reporting system.

We can do better, and we must.

Re:Finding yourself in Google

[LiquidCoooled (634315)]

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 [google.co.uk].

Re:Finding yourself in Google

[LiquidCoooled (634315)]

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.

The privacy right has been judicially created

[Infonaut (96956)]

If the government wants to change what privacy means to THEM, they need a constitutional amendment.

The "right of privacy" is a judicial construct. I'm not saying that it is a bad construct, but you'll never see the word "privacy" in the Constitution. In interpreting the 4th Amendment, the Supreme Court has constructed a Constitutional protection of privacy. Maybe the definition of "activist judges" depends on where you sit. Anyway, the courts have acknowledged that this is an implicit, rather than explicit right.

Legislative acts have also defined privacy in their own ways, but the term "privacy" is a difficult one to define with precision when we're dealing with electronic communications. If the limits of privacy are no longer defined by your physical presence, how far does your right to privacy extend? With so much of our lives being lived online, would excessive provisions for privacy actually extend the doctrine further than it was originally intended?

Another question: We place our trust in Google every time we use its services, but why do we place more trust in a profit-maximizing enterprise than in our own government? Ostensibly we can hold our government accountable through elections, but we have less influence on corporations. Sure, we have the power of the wallet, but when's the last time you saw an effective consumer boycott in the information economy?

No. You're wrong...

[msauve (701917)]

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.

Ninth Amendment is critical to modern 'privacy'

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

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 [sdf-us.org]" (text version [sdf-us.org]) which I wrote a while back and recently updated.

Re:Ninth Amendment is critical to modern 'privacy'

[mweather (1089505)]

Not quite what I meant. The constitution lists government powers, not citizen's rights. We always had the right to privacy. Just like we had the right to bear arms before the second amendment was written. Which is why it says the government may not infinge on our right to bear arms and not that the people have a right to bear arms. The right already existed.

Re:

[smitty_one_each (243267)]

Maybe we can invite a Brit to weigh in on whether or not it's irony, but what fascinates me is that many of the same people who cry the loudest about the Bush Administration's actions are also the ones going on about the need for social welfare programs and universal health care.
Look: either the government pervades your life, or it does not.
The debate is healthy, though. Perhaps it will lead to clearer rules of engagement on security and privacy. If you're tasked with ensuring security, you really want

Re:Finding yourself in Google

[TheRequiem13 (978749)]

Government provisions for socialized health care do not inherently sacrifice privacy. What gives you that idea? As long as the hospitals (etc) abide to patient confidentiality, and the government pays for these hospitals (etc) to operate, there's no issue.

This is really far from an "all or nothing" debate. That's what the government wants you to believe: that in order to provide you with services, security and safety, we need to be able to get into every facet of your life. Don't let them convince you that's how it has to be.

There are choices to be made about everything. The government can provide health care without access to specific patient information. They can provide security without reading your email and listening to your phone calls. Do not for a second believe that one comes with the other. We have choices.

Re:Finding yourself in Google

[MadUndergrad (950779)]

NO! Bad! This is not about "feeling" secure, it's about BEING secure. There's a huge difference. If someone can unreasonably search all your papers, effects, etc. then you're not secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, are you? It has nothing to do with how you feel about it. I see people making this fallacy all the time, that it's about feeling secure rather than actually being secure. That's not how it works. There is no rhetorical ground to be muddied.

Re:

[NeverVotedBush (1041088)]

Not such a good idea because there aren't that many John Doe's. Go for John Smith. Or now, maybe you should change your name to Mohammed Al-Mohammed. Or Juan Sanchez. Or Unique Williams. Or possibly best of all -- Lee Chin.

Re:The US is not the entire planet.

[NeverVotedBush (1041088)]

"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.

The real trick

[Mi5ke561 (1002900)]

What this guy Kerr and the rest of the Bush Regime and it's merry henchmen haven't figured out yet is that the real trick is to protect a free society without interfering with it's ability to function as one. This guy fits Mr. Justice Brandeis observation that the real encroachments on liberty come, "from men of zeal, but without understanding." This guy fits that cookie cutter perfectly-- his reach exceeds his grasp. And because that's common in government, they're fast becoming a bigger threat to the ordinary citizen than the often notional terrorists are.

Re:

[falconwolf (725481)]

If you believe you can have privacy, security and anonyminity you are wrong. You might get any two of those. Maybe.

Privacy and anonymity are essentially the same thing. A USSC ruling even stated this in the early 1800s. If a person couldn't reasonable expect to keep their privacy then freedom of political speech didn't mean anything. Without remaining anonymous people wouldn't be willing to talk openly about politics for fear what they say can be used against them. I think the appropriate third word

Re:Sounds good to me

[HiThere (15173)]

It requires trusting the people who will be collecting the information. Experience proves that they are *NOT* trustworthy, and don't have your best interests at heart.

Even if you can't get total privacy, get what you can, and don't give up easily. Those who are trying to replace privacy with trusting large organizations are doing so because large organizations can be threatened by larger or more powerful (or even just more committed) organizations.

P.S.: Remember that "Do Not Call" list? That one shares your phone number with all telemarketers, so they'll know who not to call. It expires next year, and they've got your number.