No Place to Hide

Robert O’Harrow, Jr.

Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to

Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act

(USA PATRIOT Act)

USA PATRIOT ActDilemma

"The argument boiled down to this: In an age of high-tech terror, what is the proper balance between national

security and the privacy of millions of Americans, whose

personal information is already more widely available than ever

before?” (13).

USA PATRIOT ActRestraints on the Government

Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978

The Privacy Act of 1974

USA PATRIOT Act9/11 and the Data Revolution

“In the previous decade, the world had watched the power of computers increase at an extraordinary pace. At the same time, the price of data

storage plummeted, while new software tools enabled analysts to tap into giant reservoirs of names,

addresses, purchases, and other details and make sense of it all”

(14).

USA PATRIOT ActThoughtfulness vs. Urgency

“Something terrible happens. Legislators rush to respond. They don’t have time to investigate the policy implications thoroughly, so they reach for what’s available and

push it through” (16).

USA PATRIOT ActSection 215

Allowed investigators to obtain records from nearly any business without the requirement that the target be an agent of foreign

power.

USA PATRIOT ActReactions

“We once had a culture of law enforcement that inhibited and prevented communication and coordination. We have constructed a new spirit of justice. We’ve built America’s

defense, the defense of life and liberty upon a foundation of prevention, nurtured by cooperation, built on coordination and

communication and rooted in our constitutional liberties. 9/11 taught us that terrorists had outflanked law enforcement in technology, communications and information. So we have fought for the tools necessary to

protect the lives and liberties of the American people. Congress provided these

tools in the USA Patriot Act passed overwhelmingly by bipartisan majority” (31).

USA PATRIOT ActReactions

“It’s an electronic door-to-door search. You can’t physically go door to door or stop every car on the highway. But now we have the [ability] to do it unbeknownst to the people. Now it can be done electronically and constantly”

(32)

USA PATRIOT ActReactions

“The temptation will be more and more - especially in a polarized society and a

society where there is fear, whether it’s the Red Scare in the fifties or terrorism in this century - to use those databanks. At some point it doesn’t matter if they’re private or public, at some point they will be used by the government to determine who

is a good American and who is a bad American. Not determined through

prosecution, trial, but based on what came up on someone’s computer screen” (33).

Acxiom

AcxiomPurpose

“To use computers and heaps of information about people to help marketers get to know individuals

better” (38).

AcxiomWhat kind of information?

Names Addresses Telephone numbers Marital status Families Ages of children and their grades

Estimated incomes Home value

Make and price of individual’s cars

Occupations Religion Ethnicity Details about credit cards

Reading habits Spending habits Vacation habits

AcxiomWhere does the information come

from?

Retailers Financial institutions

Direct marketers Mail-order operations

Banks

Credit card companies

Telephone companies

Drug makers Microsoft and IBM

AcxiomWhat does Acxiom do?

“The company helps retailers such as Lands’ End focus their catalogues, banking customers like Citigroup profile individuals for credit offers, and insurers such as Allstate decide whom to serve

and whom to exclude. It manages billions of financial and personal records for the privately owned credit bureau Trans Union. It enables drug companies to target people with certain ailments. It screens people for jobs and helps track down debtors. It outlines and predicts behavior. And since September 11, 2001, Acxiom has offered its technical know-how and raw material – the details about you, your life, and your family – to some of the largest surveillance and screening systems ever devised by the U.S. government” (37).

AcxiomSecurity Issues

Daniel Baas

AcxiomTheir Defense?

“…the company helps provide individuals with more shopping opportunities, quicker loan approvals, targeted marketing promotions, and an array of

conveniences” (62).

Seisint and the Matrix

Seisint

Hank AsherInitially focused on the insurance industry, private investigators, lawyers, newspapers and the police department

Eventually included consumer profiling services

MatrixWhat is it?

Multi-state Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange

MatrixWhat does it do?

Searches for ties among people “What are the interesting ties among these millions

of people? How many of them are Muslim, immigrants, transients? Where did they travel and with whom? Analysts could now ask deeply layered questions that, in essence, became profiles. One might search for all the brown-haired, Caucasian people driving red pickup trucks in a particular Zip code, with a license plate that has an ‘S’ and a ‘7’ in it. Want to add in people who bought something in a particular store or who use post office boxes? Rent apartments with other men?” (107).

Allowed states to share information with one another and significantly speed up investigations

MatrixShut it down

Civil liberties and privacy activists brought it to light

States began to turn their back on the program

Privacy concernsAsher’s past

Seisint and the Matrix system sold to LexisNexis

ChoicePoint

ChoicePointHumble Beginnings

Began as a spin-off from EquifaxPrimary customer was the insurance industry

ChoicePointAnd it grew…

Buying spreeo Bode Technology Group o VitalChek Network

“ChoicePoint’s strategy was to become, in effect, a National Nanny that for a fee could watch or assess the background of virtually anybody. ChoicePoint also wanted to be an enforcer that would determine whether someone was entitled to the ‘rights and privileges’ they claimed. That might mean a job, access to public facilities, the right to vote, or a whole array of other activities” (131).

ChoicePointAnd it grew even more…

In 2000 ChoicePoint expanded its records to include details about approximately 300 million people in 10 countries

Offered their services to the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)

ChoicePointWhere does the information come

from?

Trans Union recordsTelephone companiesAuto insurance claimsPurchased from other data companies

ChoicePoint“ChoicePoint is no longer merely a background screener. Or a drug tester. Or an insurance fraud specialist. It doesn’t just provide

dossiers to police across the country or tease out the link among people for intelligence and counterterrorism officials. It does all of that and more. By 2004, it had become perhaps the

world’s largest private intelligence operation. Its services mirrored what good intelligence analysts do, only ChoicePoint identifies the

patterns and links and potential tendencies much faster, and with a sweep that would make James Bond’s colleagues envious. Besides, as a data contractor, it often can work with aggregated details about American citizens in ways that police and intelligence officials sometimes by

law cannot” (156).

Identity Theft