Using Fourth-Party Data Brokers To Bypass the Fourth Amendment 181
An anonymous reader writes "Coming out of Columbia Law School is an article about commercial data brokers and their ability to provide information about individuals to the US government despite Fourth Amendment or statutory protections (abstract, full PDF at Download link). Quoting: 'The Supreme Court has held that the Fourth Amendment does not protect information that has been voluntarily disclosed to a third-party or obtained by means of a private search. Congress reacted to these holdings by creating a patchwork of statutes designed to prevent the government's direct and unfettered access to documents stored with third-parties; thus, the government's access is fettered by various statutory requirements, including, in many cases, notice of the disclosure. Despite these protections, however, third-parties are not restricted from passing the same data to other private companies (fourth-parties), and after the events of September 11, 2001, the government, believing that it needed a greater scope of surveillance, turned to the fourth-parties to access the personal information it could not acquire on its own. As a consequence, the fourth-parties, unrestricted by Fourth Amendment or statutory concerns, delivered — and continue to deliver — personal data en masse to the government.'"
Equal protection from government and corporations (Score:5, Interesting)
This is something that has had me puzzled for quite a while now. Why does the US have this fetish with keeping the government out of their private lives, yet allow corporations free reign to use, misuse, misplace and basically be asses with the same information?
In e.g. Norway all sectors are under the same law, this including corporate, governmental and academic uses. Obviously certain organizations are allowed to store more information than others.
Facebook exists for a reason. (Score:4, Interesting)
When 'free' web services which are obviously tremendously expensive to maintain and which feature only a token handful of banner ads. . .
I don't know the economics of Facebook and Yahoo and Google, but it certainly seems that there would be a TON of money available for the kind of information they pull in. Do corporations actively resist selling a constantly renewable resource they specifically crafted their web sites and web applications to generate? I have no trouble believing that Facebook is selling everything they glean about you to the highest bidder. It's Google that I find myself wondering about; their "Don't Be Evil" thing is so effective that even I have the slogan burned into my mind.
But do those Google ads REALLY pay for entire data centers and dedicated trunks and hundreds of miles of fiber optics?
Really?
-FL
Pay in cash (Score:3, Interesting)
The US gov also buys the same info in bulk.
Then you have the shadow security and marketing sub set that feeds the US gov a stream of top quality filtered info on US suburbia ie You the US slashdot reader.
The terror watch list will never go down and they will milk it for their investors and shareholders for generations.
Lists are just a small part of a huge cash river of your tax $ paying to keep a few 1000 of you safe from.
Note how the deals, tv games and send in for a discount forms all want your email now to
Re:Facebook exists for a reason. (Score:3, Interesting)
Today I'm feeling quite safe with google and - to a lesser extent - facebook, because they're doing fine financially and these data are what gives them an edge over their competitor so they want to keep it to themselves. The problem is when they fall in the yahoo category, "used to be great but now needs any cash it can find". Who's to say that five years from now facebook isn't gonna be faded out and trying to sell everything to stay alive too ? The very same facebook that knows pretty much everything there is to know about you ?
Worst part of that is that we can't even blame the companies that would do that; they're companies, selling what they can to make money is what they exist for. The control is supposed to come from the laws, which seems to be more and more screwed up all over the world with every year passing by ... When you take a second to really think about it, you realize our right to privacy is already completely screwed up, and nobody (5% of people) seems to care as long as their tv is working.
Re:Facebook exists for a reason. (Score:4, Interesting)
Its an intel dream. Just add their own and sit back and watch who joins.
They get IP's, details, gossip and locations.
If anything starts to connect in real life, they are in it from day one as trusted members or know who they are and can pull one aside to buy/blackmail.
The 1980's east bloc found it so hard to crack the CIA backed peace and church fronts. They flooded the groups with agents and helpers but found nothing useful in the short term.
The US has learned from all this and wants in on any new groups, the net is perfect. The end users think they are just 1 IP in millions and will slip under the radar, they are not.
Re:Bend over citizen (Score:3, Interesting)
True, but consider the alternative. If the government couldn't collect any information without receiving it directly from citizens or under a subpoena, they wouldn't know shit! At first this sounds nice, but given the mostly advantageous activities of law enforcement, I think I like it more the way it is.
The real 800 pound gorilla in the room is the lack of strong federal privacy laws that dictate what corporations may do with our information. Companies should not be allowed to trade, buy or sell personally identifiable information about consumers except to those parties where needed to complete a transaction(i.e. credit bureau, DMV, etc.) without their explicit permission. Any time a consumer wants to give that permission, it should be an opt-in only scheme and it should be illegal for companies to limit their services to those who choose to participate in such information sharing programs.
Re:Sharing vs taking. (Score:2, Interesting)
Governments compile the information about you in order to limit your freedom.
Are you kidding me? Yes. The only reason the government exists is to limit your freedom. That's obviously the only reason that the government has information on you.
It has nothing to do with figuring out how many representatives your area should have in government.
It has nothing to do with figuring out how many police officers, firefighters, and paramedics your area needs in order to provide sufficient coverage.
It has nothing to do with figuring out if the school you went to is providing a good education.
It has nothing to do with figuring out if you are owed veteran benefits if you were in the military and deployed.
It has nothing to do with making sure that the various utilities are sufficient for your area, so that you don't have blackouts all the time.
It has nothing to do with anything that could possibly be good. The only reason the government could possibly have for compiling information about you is because it wants to limit your freedom. Give me a break.
Re:Sharing vs taking. (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting how you couldn't even get an example that would be identifying of an individual. This is pretty much what we are all talking about here. Not statistics that are population based, but individual pieces of information that are linked to you as an individual.
The rebuttal is obviously still needed but the examples are telling of what people believe about data mining. Incorrectly.
Not even your "school you went to is providing a good education" is individually specific since the stats are recorded at the school level and then reported in order to get funds without the student IDs attached to a long "premenant record" detailing lunch choices in grade 9.
The "if you are owed veteran benefits if you were in the military and deployed" is kinda funny that you bring up since it's working for the government to protect freedoms but it still doesn't represent what we're talking about. That's not the same as gathered information dince it's first of all, a fact, on record, at the organization that is supposed to handle the processing of the checks and members recieving benifits. It's their data as much as it is yours.
This is about shifting data from the parties involved in the actions required to make it in the first place, to an organization that only wants the data for the sake of the data, not to give you another check, get it?
Re:Bend over citizen (Score:1, Interesting)
The real 800 pound gorilla in the room
The metaphor is "elephant in the room" [reference.com]
you've mixed it with "where does an 800lb gorilla sit" [wisegeek.com]
Corporations As Persons (Score:4, Interesting)
Corporations As Persons:
What you have to realize within these illegal transactions - bypassing the Constitution - is that you are dealing with immortals [insert vampire analogy] - these companies have that supreme advantage over all of us, putting us in a lesser category, of well, serf, basically.
Once you understand this you know where you really stand and why this "person-hood for corporations" must come to an end. Within this "law" companies are representing us [de facto] which is rediculous.