Top U.S. intelligence official: Privacy ain’t what it used to be

Steve Benen
The Carpet Bagger Report
Monday November 12, 2007

With the Bush administration re-writing the privacy rule book — and in some cases, simply throwing it away — it probably shouldn’t come as too big a surprise that Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, wants the American electorate to expect privacy to mean something different from now on. (thanks to Zeitgeist for the tip)

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says [Kerr]. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.

Kerr’s comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

According to a copy of Kerr’s speech (.pdf), the leading intelligence official suggested Americans are already giving up private information on social-networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, so we need to “beyond the construct that equates anonymity with privacy.” In terms of the government, that means Kerr and his colleagues will offer “a system of laws, rules, and customs with an infrastructure of Inspectors General, oversight committees, and privacy boards on which our intelligence community commitment is based and measured. And it is that framework that we need to grow and nourish and adjust as our cultures change.”

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He added that Americans should “really take stock of what we already are willing to give up.”

Given the Bush administration’s penchant for legally-dubious, unchecked surveillance, this really isn’t encouraging.

Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wasn’t particularly impressed with Kerr’s argument.

“Anonymity has been important since the Federalist Papers were written under pseudonyms,” Opsahl said. “The government has tremendous power: the police power, the ability to arrest, to detain, to take away rights. Tying together that someone has spoken out on an issue with their identity is a far more dangerous thing if it is the government that is trying to tie it together.”

Opsahl also 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,” he said. “We shouldn’t have to give people the choice between taking advantage of modern communication tools and sacrificing their privacy.”

“It’s just another ‘trust us, we’re the government,’” he said.

Given the Bush gang’s track record, it’s hardly a reasonable proposition.

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