Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies have bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans’ personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers.

These brokers, many of whom advertise aggressively on the Internet, have gotten into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information and even acknowledged that their practices violate laws, according to documents gathered by congressional investigators and provided to The Associated Press.

The law enforcement agencies include offices in the Homeland Security Department and Justice Department including the FBI and U.S. Marshal’s Service and municipal police departments in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia and Utah. Experts believe hundreds of other departments frequently use such services.

“We are requesting any and all information you have regarding the above cell phone account and the account holder … including account activity and the account holder’s address,” Ana Bueno, a police investigator in Redwood City, Calif., wrote in October to PDJ Investigations of Granbury, Texas.

An agent in Denver for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Anna Wells, sent a similar request on March 31 on Homeland Security stationery: “I am looking for all available subscriber information for the following phone number,” Wells wrote to a corporate alias used by PDJ.

Congressional investigators estimated the U.S. government spent $30 million last year buying personal data from private brokers. But that number likely understates the breadth of transactions, since brokers said they rarely charge law enforcement agencies any price.

[via privacy.org]

”Modern life makes many things easier and many things easier to know, and yet privacy is somehow caught in the crosshairs of these changes,” Clinton said in a speech to a left-leaning legal group.

…Clinton wants to create a ”privacy czar” within the White House to guard against recent problems like the theft of personal data from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

She also wants legislation to let consumers know what information companies are keeping about them and how it is used, and create a tiered system of penalties for companies who are not careful with consumer data.

I’ll be curious to see where this leads, and if any legislation is actually proposed.

The twin dangers of national security displacing the criminal justice system and the criminal justice becoming increasingly like the national security system are consequences of technological change. Although the National Surveillance State arises from the changing nature of war, changes in technology do not stop with the problem of war, as least as traditionally conceived. Rather, the very same changes in technology threaten to transform the ways that democratic governments interact with their citizenry. That is why the debate over the NSA program is so incredibly important. We need to have a national debate on how we will implement a system of information gathering and processing that is quickly becoming the norm and not the exception. If we do not have this debate, the system will be implemented so as to displace the civil liberties and rights of citizenship we hold dear.

The freedom of communication, and mail, telegraphic, electronic, and telephonic correspondence, and other correspondence shall be guaranteed and may not be monitored, wiretapped or disclosed except for legal and security necessity and by a judicial decision. [emphasis added]

Gore to Speak About Domestic Spy Program at Constitution Hall

Former Vice President Al Gore will give a speech addressing the constitutional crisis caused by the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program and its implications for the rule of law, the separation of powers, and Americans’ constitutional rights at Constitution Hall, on Monday, January 16. The event is sponsored by The Liberty Coalition and the American Constitution Society. Mr. Gore will be introduced by former U.S. Representative Bob Barr (R-GA), chairman of Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances.

The former Vice President’s speech comes amid growing concern about the legal basis put forward for President’s Bush’s domestic surveillance program. A December 22, 2005 letter from the Department of Justice to members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees offered a “brief summary of the legal authority supporting the NSA activities described by the President.” The letter contends that the President has the authority to “order foreign intelligence surveillance within the United States . . . .” The Justice Department further said, “The President’s constitutional authority to direct the NSA to conduct the activities he described is supplemented by statutory authority under the AUMF [Authorized Use of Military Force resolution, passed by Congress, September 18, 2001].” And the Justice Department stated that the “The President’s authorization of targeted electronic surveillance by the NSA is also consistent with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (‘FISA’).”

However, an extensive analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service questioned the Department of Justice assessment. The CRS report concluded that the Congress expressly intended for the government to seek warrants from a special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before engaging in such surveillance when it passed legislation creating the court in 1978. The report also concluded that Bush’s assertion that Congress authorized such eavesdropping to detect and fight terrorists does not appear to be supported by the special resolution that Congress approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which focused on authorizing the president to use military force. “It appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here,” the authors of the CRS report wrote. The administration’s legal justification “does not seem to be…well-grounded,” the CRS report said.

A letter from legal scholars and former government officials reached a similar conclusion. The letter states: “Although the program’s secrecy prevents us from being privy to all of its details, the Justice Department’s defense of what it concedes was secret and warrantless electronic surveillance of persons within the United States fails to identify any plausible legal authority for such surveillance. Accordingly the program appears on its face to violate existing law.”

Vice President Gore’s speech will begin at 12 noon on Monday, January 16. Register for the event here.

EPIC also provides a number of links to other important analyses of this vital issue:

• Liberty Coalition
• American Constitution Society
• Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances
• Justice Department Defense of Domestic Surveillance Program (pdf)
• Congressional Research Service Analysis of Domestic Surveillance Program (pdf)
• Legal Scholars’ Analysis of Domestic Surveillance Program (pdf)

ComuterWorld reports that a senior legislator in Japan is calling for the addition of data privacy rights to the country’s constitution:

An influential Japanese politician earlier this month called for the right to information privacy to be added to the country’s constitution. The collection, storage, use and transfer of personal information should be banned unless the person consents to the activity or there’s a valid legal exception, said Yukio Hatoyama, a member of Japan’s House of Representatives and former leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan.

People should have the right to know what information about them has been gathered and how it’s being used, Hatoyama said in a speech about updating Japan’s 1947 constitution.

We need a public discussion about the right to know about one’s personal information on this side of the Pacific as well.
[via Privacy Digest]