General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Re: Attacks on Snowden, Greenwald. How the fuck do people like that sleep at night? [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)You have a right to privacy as to your personal papers and effects. Based on what I know about past Supreme Court decisions, you should have a right to privacy regarding things if you make an effort to keep the information private. Thus, it seems to me that if you use a password to protect your e-mail account or your telephone information from prying eyes or thieves, then you have shown the intention of a privacy interest in that information and the government needs a subpoena or a warrant that is specific enough to get a court order to see that information.
I can understand that the police sometimes need to acquire pen registers in the context of a specific investigation. That was the Maryland case decided in the late 1970s. In the general discussion in a recent Supreme Court decision, the Court questioned, however, whether that rule would apply to the general collection of information from large numbers of pen registers. There is in fact no reasonable suspicion upon which to base a review of my personal phone records or e-mail and health care (yes, my health records are on the internet) or pension funds or bank accounts. Not the slightest basis for reasonable suspicion other than that someone might not like my political opinions. (But if that is the basis for gathering my pen register, then a lot of people are in trouble just like me.)
I am particularly troubled by the fact that your pen register reveals perfectly legal activities in which you engage. You call your lawyer. Your pen register shows that. Yet you are, by tradition and under the Constitution ( a mix) entitled to confidentiality in your contacts and communications with a lawyer. Companies whether sole proprietorships or large corporations have the right to protect trade secrets. The customer list may be considered to be a trade secret if the company makes an effort to keep it private. The vendors from which a company buys ingredients or supplies for its products might also be subject to the privacy rules that prohibit the government from obtaining information about them without a warrant. Then there are the health records. If you have an abortion, that is between you and your doctor, not between you and the government. Yet your pen register may reveal your contacts and even dates of care at an abortion clinic.
The pen register case involved a specific suspect in a specific case. I truly believe that if the current broad sucking in of pen registers and processing of them by massive computers will not pass the test with the Supreme Court.
Of course I could be wrong. Why? Because among the pen records sucked up by our NSA are those of Supreme Court justices most likely. I'm sure that the Supreme Court justices would like to have their privacy protected as would we all.
If the surveillance is really to prevent terrorism and to trace those who fund terrorist groups, how did the funders of ISIS slip through the radar? Why don't we hear more about warrants for the arrest of those who do fund terrorist groups?
I am not totally convinced that the object of the surveillance is to prevent or catch terrorists. It will take stronger evidence than I have learned of thus far to convince me of that.