Privacy Part 2: Government Surveillance

April 8

Last week we looked at big-picture concepts of privacy and how the Internet and Internet companies reflect these issues. This week we dive into the specific question of surveillance by governments: how the Internet allows governments to observe their (and other governments') citizens, and what that does to us and the Internet as a system.

Joining us for this week are Berkman fellow and online security expert Bruce Schneier and Berkman Clinical Instructional Fellow Kit Walsh.

There is a related event at Harvard Law School earlier on this class day that may be of interest to students (RSVP required).

Readings

Government vs. Corporate Surveillance

• Brian Fung, Yes, There Is Actually a Huge Difference Between Government and Corporate Surveillance

• Bruce Schneier, The Trajectories of Government and Corporate Surveillance

• Emily Bell et al., Comment to Review Group on Intelligence and Communication Technologies Regarding the Effects of Mass Surveillance on the Practice of Journalism (pages 9-12 ("Mass surveillance raises issues beyond individual surveillance," "Secret and confusing law," and "Chilling Effects") only)

Case Study - the NSA Scandal and Surveillance Policy

• The Guardian, NSA Surveillance Revelations Decoded (peruse)

• Electronic Frontier Foundation, Timeline of NSA Domestic Spying (peruse)

• Jack Goldsmith, We Need an Invasive NSA

• Fred Kaplan, Why Snowden Won't (and Shouldn't) Get Clemency

• Bruce Schneier, The Battle for Power on the Internet (approx. 12:30, watch all)

Surveillance and U.S. law

• Kit Walsh, The NSA's Spying Powers: Reading the Statute

• Steve Vladeck, Laura Donohue's Comprehensive Case Against Bulk Metadata Collection

• If you're interested, the Donohue article can be found here.

Optional Readings

• The Jennifer Granick / Orin Kerr debates on metadata and the Fourth Amendment

• Granick's opening
• Kerr's response
• Granick's reply
• Kerr's sur-reply

• Bruce Schneier, The Limitations of Intelligence

• Johannes Köppel, The International Dimension of the SWIFT Affair

Class Discussion

Please remember to sign your postings by adding four tildes (~~~~) to the end of your contribution. This will automatically add your username and the date/time of your post, like so: Andy 15:12, 7 November 2013 (EST)

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Maybe I'm missing something, but what, exactly, has the government been doing with the information they have gotten through the NSA? It doesn't seem like they've been using it to incriminate individual citizens or even monitor them too extensively-- otherwise, wouldn't they have been able to track down would-be criminals prior to them committing crimes, a la Minority Report? They also don't seem to be monitoring it for the purpose of censorship, as is the case in China and Russia or the HUAC. And how are they even conducting their "research"? Do individuals actually go through all of that information, or is it a case whereby a machine compiles data and directs NSA employees' attentions only to cases where there are a multitude of 'questionable' searches/calls/etc.? As far as foreign policy is concerned, the act of spying on other governments has been practiced since the beginning of history. Does the advent of technology change what is acceptable in regards to spying, or only make it more accessible? With nuclear war so very possible in our times, it seems like some sort of action must be taken to monitor the intentions of other countries and their relations with the US and alliances with other countries, since transparency seems to be an impossible ideal for all countries. Castille 15:52, 5 April 2014 (EDT)

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The Guardian article- informative content, but I want to comment on its amazing user interface. This is where the web should be heading. In the same way that HTML provides markup to words and sentences, the interactive features of this article help to mark up the thoughts & ideas presented in the article. Very nicely done. Erin Saucke-Lacelle 22:55, 6 April 2014 (EDT)

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I am very interested to see what new data mining policies are made or both the government and corporations. Despite the reveal that we lack privacy (collection of lots of personal data from each sector), it would be nice if we had the right to know which data and on what terms data is collected on us. Agreed these are probably in the majority of privacy agreements I don't read. Trying harder to be transparent and clear with these privacy regulations would help society to at least be not as shocked by large government leaks. (Margorm 17:58, 7 April 2014 (EDT))