Privacy's Twilight: Rise Of The Total Surveillance Society

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By Steve Elliott (about the author) Page 2 of 3 page(s)

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Hidden in current Senate housing legislation is a sweeping provision authored by Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) that affects the privacy and operation of nearly all of America's small businesses. The provision, which was added by the bill's managers without debate a couple of weeks ago, would require the nation's payment systems to track, aggregate, and report to the federal government information on nearly every electronic transaction.

"There's virtually no branch of the U.S. government that isn't in some way involved in monitoring or surveillance," said Matthew Aid, an intelligence historian and fellow at the National Security Archives at The George Washington University. "We're operating in a brave new world."

"You don't have to look far into history to know that when the government, any government, is given secret authorities, that those authorities are ultimately abused," Mike German, a former FBI agent who is now policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told the Baltimore Sun. "You don't even have to attribute bad motives to anyone. In an intelligence officer's zeal to protect the country, they often will overstep their bounds."

"We should have what Canada has, which is a minister of privacy, someone looking out for the privacy issues of Americans," James Bamford, an intelligence expert and author on two books about the history of the NSA, told Sun reporter Bradley OIson. "We have armies of people out there trying to pick into everyone's private life, but we have nobody out there who's an advocate."

The big corporations aren't content to let their servants in government feed alone at the overflowing data trough.

The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times reported on July 8 about concerns that non-government surveillance is being abused for advertising purposes. Yesterday, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a hearing on the privacy issues raised by online advertising. Critics, meanwhile, are questioning whether the practices used by NebuAd and other ad-targeting companies violate wiretap laws, which prevent carriers from monitoring customer communications.

Public outcry, along with questions by two key members of Congress about the legality of such tracking by ISPs, led Charter Communications to announce in June it was indefinitely delaying using NebuAd's service. Reps. Edward J. Markey (D-MA) and Joe Barton (R-TX), wrote to Charter in May (PDF download here) saying they believed that ISPs using NebuAd's technology might violate federal laws designed to protect the privacy of personal information collected by cable companies about their subscribers.

Big porkers like international media conglomeration Viacom want to know you better, and not just for marketing purposes.

Viacom decided to demand your information from Google (owners of YouTube), so they sued and won in court. Louis L. Stanton, a Reagan-appointed federal judge in New York, on July 3 ordered Google to give up the information on all YouTube users, including every video they'd ever viewed, posted, and even videos that were posted and then deleted. If you've ever visited YouTube even a single time and watched a single video, Viacom's now got your IP address.

That's right -- this big media company considers every video you've ever watched on YouTube as being their business. They have been given the data on your own personal viewing history. Viacom is in effect going after its own customer base, on the assumption of wrongdoing on your part, and they obviously have no problem violating your right to privacy.

This is despite the fact that when you click on a video, you in many cases have no way of knowing if the material is copyrighted or not. And it is despite the fact that consumers like you, under Fair Use doctrine, are supposed to be able to upload copyrighted material for the purposes of commentary, criticism, satire, parody, education or discussion.

Viacom is counting on the sheep-like apathy of the American consumer to shield it, as a corporation, from any consequences. But YouTube viewers -- who are, of course, also Viacom customers -- are organizing themselves in a boycott of Viacom, which is the parent company of Paramount studios, DreamWorks Animation, CMT, Rhapsody, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, Nickelodeon, and Spike.

It shouldn't be a big surprise to anyone (except, apparently, Viacom), that when a company gets this nosy, it's going to create a lot of consumer resentment.

Viacom says that it wants to prove that users watch more copyrighted TV programs than user generated content on YouTube. What they are also proving probably intentionally, is that (a) when you're watching YouTube, they are watching you and taking notes; and (b) you'd better not post any of their programming, or even watch it when someone else has posted it.

According to YouTube's own blog, "YouTube received a court order to produce viewing data from our database, including usernames and IP addresses. In order to protect our community's privacy, we strongly opposed this motion when Viacom and others filed it. The court felt differently and ordered us to produce the data. Viacom said that they need general viewing information to determine the proportion of views on YouTube of copyright infringing content vs. non-infringing content."

YouTube argued that since IP addresses and usernames aren't necessary to determine general viewing practices, they should be allowed to remove that information before they hand over the data that Viacom is seeking.

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I'm a 48-year-old writer, editor, ex-musician, dreamer, reality catcher, ex-con, and father. I have three kids, five tattoos, a criminal record, a terminal disease, and an attitude. I was born in Alabama and spent the first 38 years of my life there (more...)

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