The New York Times on Friday 8/16/19 included a pair of disturbing stories.
N.Y.P.D. Swells DNA Database Using Sly Tests, and, White House Asks To Reauthorize Surveillance of Americans’ Phone Data.
The DNA article opens with the cops giving a 12 year old boy a soda – then sending the straw to their lab so he can be added to their master file.
Meanwhile, in Washington, the Trump administration wants the National Security Agency to be allowed, again, to vacuum data from everyday Americans’ phones on the extraordinarily rare chance the data might point to “indirect links between people.”
These concerns mirror discussions in many circles over better than a decade about the indiscriminate collection – and sharing – of personal data.
In 2014 audiences at the Edinburgh Festival were simultaneously entertained and horrified by a show called The Secret Life of Your Mobile Phone, which lifted the lid on some of the secrets that your mobile phone gives away. Using data being transmitted by the phones of the audience members, Channel 4 journalist Geoff White and security expert Glenn Wilkinson managed to pinpoint everything from their names, where they’d been on holiday, and even the specific bars they’d visited.
The same piece also notes how porn sites – which claim to guarantee anonymity – have long shared data on visitors with google and friends.
Yes, stories on the melting away of privacy pop-up almost every day. And, the pieces most always note a (rare) good outcome. For example, that DNA article pointed to a rape case solved years after the crime by a match against that massive stealth database.
Still, Americans revere the First Amendment. Besides protecting press freedom and the right to worship (or not), the amendment includes the right (included within peaceable assembly) to free association with others. By further inference, Americans enjoy the right to be left alone.
And, the Fifth Amendment famously protects Americans from being forced to testify against themselves.
The question, then, does the remote possibility of preventing or punishing illegal acts justify slicing chunks off the Bill of Rights? And, ought big business be allowed to follow our every word, every act?
Better than 25 years ago one of the smartest computer people I knew called “Computer Security” the ultimate oxymoron. That quote came before smart phones, GPS tracking, home DNA kits, servers harvesting terabytes of mostly useless information each hour and living life on social media.
Yes, the time for an effective and distinct Right To Privacy to be added to the United States Constitution may have passed. Our shared reality includes being watched, tracked and listened to most all the time, everyday. That’s how big government and big business now operate.
Only our thoughts remain private…for now.
Glenn