Monday, September 9, 2002

Arlington TX Police Requesting Thumbprints for Checks Arlington Texas police proposed Operation Thumbs Up, a voluntary initiative for local merchants to collect thumb prints with checks, as a deterrent to forgery. This has a couple of civil liberties and privacy implications: It highlights the growing problem of identity theft. Unfortunately, identity theft cannot be solved by the seemingly perfect solution of biological identifiers, such as fingerprints, because identity theft can actually involve several intervening forms of identification that eventually associate a fingerprint with a different identity. This process can easily begin with a social security number, which is supposed to be very private but is in fact requested by businesses regularly. Identity theft is practically a difficult crime to prevent, but the solution is implausible unless it keeps identity more private, not less. It also mentions the growing problem of surveillance databases, which in this case is a database of citizen fingerprints. Without this type of database, collecting fingerprints with checks is almost useless. Unfortunately, like many other databases used by the police and other government departments, they do not take into account the due process rights of the citizens whose records are being added or modified. [Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Privacy Digest] 3:16:09 AM

Thursday, September 5, 2002

Louise Roback and William Schneider on Freedom and Security In a pair of articles in the Press-Herald on Monday, Louise Roback, the new executive director of the MCLU, and William Schneider, the lead homeland security prosecutor in the Maine Federal AG's office, addressed homeland security due process issues. Schneider: "We can fight any terrorist organization and any threat within the guidelines of the Constitution . . . the more we have to sacrifice civil liberties, the more the terrorists will win" Roback: "People say, 'Well, I don't see my rights are threatened, so whatever the government needs to do is fine.' But once the balance shifts, you don't get those rights back. That's why we should care." 12:36:58 AM

Saturday, August 31, 2002

3 Justices Call for Reviewing Death Sentences for Juveniles In an unusual dissent from an order declining to stay an execution, three Supreme Court justices urged the court to reconsider allowing juveniles to be sentenced to death. By Adam Liptak. [New York Times: Politics] 6:14:14 PM

Wednesday, August 28, 2002

The Failures of Technological Security This collection of articles from the Atlantic Monthly highlights the dangers of relying on technological solutions to America's post-9/11 security needs, especially those that invade our civil liberties. The articles all note in particular that there is valid tradeoff between liberty and security-- except that this technology does not provide real security. "The trick is to remember that technology can't save you.... We know this in our own lives. We realize that there's no magic anti-burglary dust we can sprinkle on our cars to prevent them from being stolen. We know that car alarms don't offer much protection. The Club at best makes burglars steal the car next to you. For real safety we park on nice streets where people notice if somebody smashes the window. Or we park in garages, where somebody watches the car. In both cases people are the essential security element. You always build the system around people." The danger to our civil liberty and livelihood is also pointed out in the context of biometric ID cards: "For the purposes of a national ID card, identity is a unique, unchanging set of distinguishing characteristics: the flecks in one's iris, the ridges of one's left thumb.... As Americans, though, we have a higher identity: free agent, self-legislator, citizen. It's a common identity held individually. It's what allows us to bond and make a nation or, if necessary, dissolve our bonds. This identity can't be captured on a card, but there is a risk it could be supplanted by one." These articles should be taken into consideration of the Deering High School ID Badges. 2:30:49 PM

American Library Association: The USA-Patriot Act The American Library Association has posted a collection of information about the investigative provisions of the USA-Patriot Act. The collection is intended to be a guide for librarians, but is also very useful for library users interested in the impact on their privacy and due process rights. [From the Scout Report] 2:02:56 PM

And Now, The Secret Appeals Court... [Following the Secret Intelligence Court's rebuff of the Justice Dept...] The nation's super-secret intelligence appeals court has been asked to make a ruling on the extent of the police powers that should be granted to the Justice Department. By Philip Shenon. [New York Times: National] 2:02:35 AM

Man Freed After DNA Clears Him of Murder Eddie Joe Lloyd had confessed to the rape and murder of a sixteen year old girl in 1984. He had made his confession while being evaluated in a mental hospital and says that he had made it in order to help the police capture the real killer. Eddie Joe Lloyd, on capital punishment: "I consider myself lucky.... Seventeen years? If Michigan had the death penalty, I would have been through, the angels would have sung a long time ago." Judge Leonard Townsend, overturning the conviction: "I have never heard this gentleman say, `I didn't do it,' or, `They forced me to say it.' Even though he might have lied about what he did, the fault falls on him. The fault lies with no one else." Judge Townsend, convicting Lloyd, 1985: "The sentence that the statute requires is inadequate. The only justifiable sentence, I would say, would be termination by extreme constriction." [New York Times: National] 1:27:03 AM

Court Backs Open Deportation Hearings in Terror Cases A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that the Bush administration acted unlawfully in holding hundreds of terror-related deportation hearings in secret. [Excerpts from decision.] By Adam Liptak. [New York Times: National] 1:14:09 AM

Deering High Requires Photo Badges Deering High School will be requiring students to wear photo badges at all times this upcoming school year. Although the school is seeking to protect students and improve security, the photo badges will not realistically protect the school from intruders. Students will also be losing the opportunity to learn about their rights to privacy and due process. 12:02:15 AM

Friday, August 23, 2002

FBI Misled Intelligence Court to Avoid Fourth Amendment The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret court which approves FBI electronic surveillance requests, said that it was misled "an alarming number of times" in 2001 and 2002 on the intentions of FBI surveillance requests. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the FBI has a much lower evidence standard to request a surveillance warrant to be used for counter intelligence purposes, but the information they gather cannot be used for any domestic criminal investigation. The court said that it was frequently misled by the FBI that this "wall of separation" between counterintelligence and criminal investigations was being maintained. Surprisingly, the court actually praised the Ashcroft Justice department for cleaning up these abuses, but the court had also rejected the Justice department's request earlier this year to circumvent the FISA protections, saying that the request was not reasonably designed to protect Americans' privacy. The full opinion is also available. [PDF, link from The Washington Post and Slashdot.] [New York Times: National] 3:34:41 PM

Sunday, August 18, 2002

NASA Developing Brainwave Screening for Airports NASA is developing computer systems to identify "likely terrorists" by heart rates and ultimately brainwave patterns. EPIC gained information through a FOIA request of the initiative to add so-called "non-invasive neuro-electric sensors" to the pre-existing Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System (CAPPS) already being used to profile air travelers. Though the system raises due process and privacy concerns, as testing brainwave and heart rate patters would likely constitute a search, the Washington Times article points out that airports have generally had lower due process standards. [Daypop Top News Stories and The Washington Times] 9:32:59 PM

Ohio Judge Rules Out Death Penalty Because of Defense Costs Ohio Judge Jeffrey Simmons told prosecutors that they could not seek the death penalty because of the burden the expensive defense would put on the county. The higher cost of providing for a death penalty defense comes from the higher due process protections given to defendants. [The New York Times] 9:31:15 AM

Saturday, August 17, 2002

ACLU of Texas testifies against racially biased investigation "In testimony today before state lawmakers, the American Civil Liberties Union blasted Texas Attorney General John Cornyn for failing to investigate a series of phony drug busts that led to the arrest of nearly 10 percent of the black residents of a small town in Texas." 7:55:39 PM