"We are in the midst of a critically important debate about the proper scope of the government's surveillance authority. This debate should not take place in a vacuum.
The public has a right to know, at least in general terms, what kinds of surveillance the court authorized and what kinds of surveillance it disallowed."
Jameel Jaffer, ACLU

“…the blood of the hundred thousand people who die in the next attack will be on your hands.”Dick Cheney’s former Legal Counsel David Addington, in reference to legal questions about another Administration decision re: wiretapping, from the Raw Story blog.

This week, I’m writing about privacy: that of the wired kind, and that of the sexual kind (vis Larry Craig). Those of us who publish online can be a bit flip about privacy,

but the truth is, if we use many of the most common media today, our conversations are open for business. Recently, everyone I meet is discussing their companies’ new policies for online auditing of new hires (what are you sucking on in that Facebook photo, Missy?). And we all Google everyone we meet before we meet them, or deem them dateable. My best friend’s ex even blogged about a first date, very quickly after he broke up with my friend. And I will never recover from the Tommy Lee and Pam video.

But clearly, social media is not all fun and games. It’s too powerful for that. The same power that lets silly little me connect instantly facilitates terrorists and violence-causing non-state actors.

And it’s hard for me to side wholeheartedly with the ACLU and colleagues who object to Government surveillance of new media, because God forbid such surveillance catches the next major terrorist plotters on their cell phones. But the lines are so fuzzy now. I think any illusions of our privacy online are ill placed. In my graduate school program I meet journalists whose countries physically and financially punished them for speaking out against ruling parties. It’s easy to think, that would never happen here, but our networked world means one woman’s blog could be another man’s plotting ground.

The Bush-Cheney administration had been working for some time to relax FISA Court and other laws in favor of broader powers to conduct surveillance. Throughout, those who have contested increased surveillance get rebukes like this, from Cheney’s Legal Counsel Addington: “the blood of the hundred thousand people who die in the next attack will be on your hands.”

This attitude frames why, in August 2007, the Democrats in Congress caved in to Bush Administration demands to re-fashion FISA, and why some bloggers today have been discussing an article in the American Prospect, in which the reporter asks, "Why wasn't there greater mobilization against the warrantless surveillance bill passed earlier this month?”

"Caroline Fredrickson, the legislative director of the ACLU, is still fuming over the way Democrats reneged on reassurances she says they offered in late July to liberal groups -- particularly at a key meeting on July 20 -- that they wouldn't move any major revisions to the current FISA law before getting the answers they sought about the current warrantless wiretapping program.

"They turned around and screwed us over -- and the Constitution -- all at once," she says of the fast-moving FISA legislation that left the ACLU and other groups scrambling to stop it.”

I liked this comment, which sums up why Democrats, and many Americans, are loath to stop warrentless wiretapping, et al:

“The blame, of course, rests solely on the shoulders of "the sheep" who once again capitulated to the classic fear-mongering tactic employed by the administration. The old reliable "if hundreds of thousands die in an attack during the August recess, then it will be on the Democrat's head". Scream that one out and they fold every time. I'm sure Karl Rove was positively beaming.”

As usual, Republicans win the war of words. If a legislator favors cutting funding for Iraq spending, they are labeled “against the troops.” If a legislator, or citizen, for that matter, expresses concern over electronic surveillance, “the blood of the hundred thousand people who die in the next attack will be on your hands.”

Never one for conspiracy theories, I’ve been diving into the WIRED blogs for accounts of electronic surveillance. A must-read is this WIRED piece on the symbiotic relationship between telecoms and the FBI.

"The FBI has quietly built a sophisticated, point-and-click surveillance system that performs instant wiretaps on almost any communications device, according to nearly a thousand pages of restricted documents newly released under the Freedom of Information Act.

"The surveillance system, called DCSNet, for Digital Collection System Network, connects FBI wiretapping rooms to switches controlled by traditional land-line operators, internet-telephony providers and cellular companies. It is far more intricately woven into the nation's telecom infrastructure than observers suspected.

"It's a "comprehensive wiretap system that intercepts wire-line phones, cellular phones, SMS and push-to-talk systems," says Steven Bellovin, a Columbia University computer science professor and longtime surveillance expert. …

"DCSNet is a suite of software that collects, sifts and stores phone numbers, phone calls and text messages. The system directly connects FBI wiretapping outposts around the country to a far-reaching private communications network….

"Together, the surveillance systems let FBI agents play back recordings even as they are being captured (like TiVo), create master wiretap files, send digital recordings to translators, track the rough location of targets in real time using cell-tower information, and even stream intercepts outward to mobile surveillance vans.

"FBI wiretapping rooms in field offices and undercover locations around the country are connected through a private, encrypted backbone that is separated from the internet. Sprint runs it on the government's behalf…

"But we do know that as telecoms have become more wiretap-friendly, the number of criminal wiretaps alone has climbed from 1,150 in 1996 to 1,839 in 2006. That's a 60 percent jump. And in 2005, 92 percent of those criminal wiretaps targeted cell phones, according to a report published last year.

"These figures include both state and federal wiretaps, and do not include antiterrorism wiretaps, which dramatically expanded after 9/11. They also don't count the DCS-3000's collection of incoming and outgoing phone numbers dialed. Far more common than full-blown wiretaps, this level of surveillance requires only that investigators certify that the phone numbers are relevant to an investigation."

Good? Helpful? Intrusive? Illegal?

Now, let’s talk about Larry Craig. Apparently, he’s reconsidering coming back to the Senate? Oy vey.

The Internet doesn’t suffer hypocrites gladly, and I must say, this is a situation in which a little privacy violation doesn’t bother me too much. There was an interesting piece in the Washington Post today on Mike Rogers, the gay blogger who outs closeted legislators.

"In Rogers's mind, if you're against gay rights in your public life and you live a secret homosexual life, all bets are off."

As usual, Arianna Huffington has a realistic take on the whole Larry Craig mess. In her view, there’s a need for some serious surveillance (of the warranted, non-wiretap, kind) that trained officers could better serve than skulking in men’s bathrooms...

"In the consensus judgment of America's 16 intelligence agencies, the terrorist threat to our homeland is "persistent and evolving," placing our country in "a heightened threat environment."

Given that chilling assessment, isn't it the height of madness to use America's finite law enforcement resources to seek out and arrest people for tapping the foot of a cute undercover officer in a restroom"?

As Garance Franke Ruta writes,

"A lot of people are asking, “Is solicitation a crime?” That is: Was there anything criminal about Sen. Larry Craig’s gestures if they suggested a desire for consensual lewd behavior of some kind with the man in the adjacent restroom stall?

The answer, as far as I can discern, is a clear no. (See University of Minnesota Law Professor and Independent Gay Forum contributor Dale Carpenter for more. And also, surprisingly, Captain’s Quarters.) It is not a misdemeanor in Minnesota to ask a person to have sex with you, whether by gesture or voice, and even if the person finds the request unwanted. Think about it: If it were, the women of that state would have a field day with creeps at bars and cat-callers on the street.

Solicitation of children to engage in sexual conduct is a crime (as it should be), as is solicitation of prostitution. But, again, I can find nothing in Minnesota state law that makes asking someone to hook up with you a crime, rather than a civil tort (as in sexual harassment law) regardless of the circumstances.

Why, then, do police continue to act as though it is? Because of the long and only-recently ended practice of firm legal discrimination against gay people."

I don’t care if the guy wanted to find a date in a bathroom. If you do, there is a wonderful film called “A Man of No Importance,” with Albert Finney. Watch it and then decide.

And to me, one of the saddest electronic invasions of privacy are celebrity gossip blogs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m addicted to them. But it can’t be right to follow these poor celebrity children around night and day?