Technology is Testing Privacy – Invasion, Expectations, 4th Amendment and Rights.

admin | Stuart Blog News | September 29, 2011

Technology is Testing Privacy

How technology is changing the way we reflect or adhere to the 4th amendment rights of the constitution, and how the peoples rights to privacy are changing and what or how you can protect your freedom in this area. There are a couple of things of interest along the way that have helped to contribute to the dissemination of this article,

1) Wiki Leaks and the recent upheaval here.
2) News of World and Murrdock
3) BitCoins and the Silk Road.
4) Privacy issues with Social Technology **

Spying – Bug - The risks

For many companies and individuals the thought of being spied on or bugged, or that someone would actually go to the trouble of listening or watching their activities or private life through electronic surveillance seems a little beyond belief. The facts however show a very different story, with thousands of companies and individuals being affected each year by spy bugging and eavesdropping. Spying and bugging on the increase It is a relatively simple matter to go on the internet or down the high street and purchase a very small but dangerously effective listening device or spy bug.

There are also an equal number of micro miniature video cameras available on the market that can be hidden in a room or disguised as an everyday object for less than $75.00. Many of these spy bugs can be hidden in everyday objects or come readily disguised as calculators, pens, radios, mobile phones and even items such as lamps, plant pots or books.

These items are virtually undetectable without professional electronic bug sweeping equipment and yet they can be devastating when placed in a sensitive area. Bugs can transmit hundreds of metres, and there are even products readily available that can be monitored from anywhere in the world. Fitting a spy bug or listening device It is a simple matter to place a listening device or other bug into a company or persons house; the following are some examples used.

Visit the company or house on an “appointment” and simply drop a disguised pen or similar device on a table
Send an innocent looking object through the post (a bug will be built inside it)
Gain entry into the building, either by devious means, or when it is unoccupied
Use a “listen through the wall device that can operate from outside the building
Use a work colleague or friend to enter without suspicion Spy listening and video devices

The types of devices available on the market are varied both in their format and also their quality and transmission capabilities. Small battery devices may only last a few days, but larger battery powered devices and mains powered devices can last several weeks or even indefinitely.

Small battery operated device such as a pen, calculator or mobile phone
Medium sized battery operated device such as a radio, music player, vase or plant
Mains powered device such as mains radio, lamp, electrical socket, light switch, smoke alarm
Infinity device (capable of being monitored locally, or anywhere in the US or overseas
small device often hidden in walls or ceilings or under floors Telephone listening bugs

In addition, telephone listening devices can be fitted relatively easy to your telephone line and remain undetected for years. These devices can be fitted either inside your company or home, or in many cases can be carefully fitted outside. The position can theoretically anywhere between your house and the exchange. In most cases however the bug is fitted immediately outside your building and is generally fitted over the telephone cable.

Spy listening and recording In general a bug or listening device has an automated record receiver, this means that whenever you speak, the conversation is automatically recorded and the tape or disk can be retrieved by the agent that planted the device.

Private Investigation agencies Someone who wants to place a bug inside your home, office or car, may decide to use the services of a private investigator. Many companies have access to some of the best and most effective bugging devices on the market. Devices can even be built to order providing a device that is more difficult to detect and easier to hide or disguise.

Updates:

Update 10/2/2011 Wiki Leaks Swept up and away Source economist

The release of all the leaked embassy cables marks both the end of Wiki Leaks and the beginning of an era. “IF CYBERSPACE had air, it would be thick with recriminations. Thanks to a series of slips compounded by warring whistle-blowing egos…”

Update 10/2/2011 Are We Too Hung Up on Privacy? Source online.wsj

Jeff Jarvis: ‘We now take it for granted that any piece of information we want is likely a search away.’  Privacy has been evolving to become a right as fundamental as equal protection or free speech. But what if it comes at too high a cost? What if we have too much privacy when technology now makes sharing information so much easier and the value of shared information so much greater?

Update 10/2/2011 Bitcoin, Silk Road, and Lulzsec oh my! Source Techliberation

Adrian Chen wrote a great exclusive for Gawker about the online market for illicit drugs Silk Road. I strongly commend the piece to you. The site is only accessible via the anonymizing router network TOR, although it is viewable using tor2web. Transactions are made using bitcoins, the virtual digital currency I’ve previously written about, and which I explain in a new video for Reason.tv (below), also out this week.

Update 10/2/2011 ‘Stingray’ Phone Tracker Fuels Constitutional Clash Source online.wsj

For more than a year, federal authorities pursued a man they called simply “the Hacker.” Only after using a little known cellphone-tracking device—a stingray—were they able to zero in on a California home and make the arrest.

Update: 9/30/2011 How Technology Is Testing the Fourth Amendment Source blogs.wsj

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures” – but what does that mean when it comes to techniques that use technology rather than a physical search that is easy to see?

Update: 9/30/2011 Is Facebook Trying to Kill Privacy? [OPINION] Source mashable

Facebook has finally done it. It’s just a few updates away now from euthanizing the concept of privacy, already ailing on its network.

Definitions:

**Wiki Leaks

**News of World and Murrdock

**BitCoins

**Privacy

Links:

Private investigator

Electronic bug sweeping equipment

Electronic Frontier Foundation Privacy

Electronic Frontier Foundation Surveillance Self-Defense

Electronic Privacy Information Center

Privacy Org

Quotes:

Quote I

The most frequently quoted statement by a Supreme Court justice on the subject of privacy comes in Justice Brandeis’s dissent in Olmstead v. U. S. (1928):

“The makers of our Constitution understood the need to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness, and the protections guaranteed by this are much broader in scope, and include the right to life and an inviolate personality — the right to be left alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. The principle underlying the Fourth and Fifth Amendments is protection against invasions of the sanctities of a man’s home and privacies of life. This is a recognition of the significance of man’s spiritual nature, his feelings, and his intellect.”

Quote II

Each individual is continually engaged in a personal adjustment process in which he balances the desire for privacy with the desire for disclosure and communication of himself to others, in light of the environmental conditions and social norms set by the society in which he lives. – Alan Westin, Privacy and Freedom, 1968^[16]

Video

Video 10/2/2011 A God’s-Eye View of the World Source online.wsj

A wave of ambitious social-network experiments is underway in the U.S. and Europe to track our movements, probe our relationships and, ultimately, affect the individual choices we all make. WSJ’s Robert Lee Hotz reports.

Video 10/02/2011 What They Know: Your Digital Fingerprint Source online.wsj

Companies are developing digital fingerprint technology to identify how we use our computers, mobile devices and TV set-top boxes. WSJ’s Simon Constable talks to Senior Technology Editor Julia Angwin about the next generation of tracking tools.

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