National Security Letters and Diminishing Privacy Rights

Public policy constraints impact deployment of most technology underlying the convergence of digital technologies in telecommunications, e-commerce, and e-government. Networked computers increase the vulnerability of confidential data, transaction processing infrastructure and national security. Compliance regulation imposes complex constrains on data management by government, the private-sector and their personnel. Privacy and security are a balance between individual interests in secrecy/solitude and society’s interests in security, order, and efficiency. This chapter explores the key political, legal, and regulatory methods for resolving conflicts between privacy rights and security methods to encourage convergence success. The “Privacy-Security Conundrum” is framed, then set against the more cross-dependant relationships of a “Privacy-Security Complement.” Security law illustrates that the conundrum-complement dilemma serves to define convergence as constrained and induced by the legal and policy perspectives or privacy, intellectual property, technology transfer, electronic records management, torts, criminal law, fiduciary and contractual duties and professional ethics regulating privacy and security.

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Remnants of Information Privacy in the Modern Surveillance State

10.31228/osf.io/acrkq ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Lawrence Friedman

Keyword(s):

National Security ◽

Free Speech ◽

Fourth Amendment ◽

Digital Age ◽

Legal Framework ◽

Information Privacy ◽

Privacy Rights ◽

Clear Explanation ◽

The Face ◽

Foreign Intelligence

This is a response to Laura Donohue’s book, THE FUTURE OF FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE: PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE IN A DIGITAL AGE (Oxford 2016). The book has many virtues. It provides a clear explanation of the nature of foreign intelligence surveillance in the age of electronic communication and the dangers posed by that surveillance as it has evolved and escaped the legal framework Congress designed to regulate it, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. She also provides a robust understanding of the reasons why information privacy is important, and why the framers sought to protect this form of privacy through the Fourth Amendment. The question, though, is whether reform is possible. Donohue argues for a new Fourth Amendment standard to govern foreign intelligence surveillance, one that recognizes and accounts for the dangers this surveillance poses to the information privacy rights of U.S. persons. Notwithstanding the merits of the proposal, such a standard can only come from the U.S. Supreme Court, and that is not likely any time soon. Part of the problem is the Fourth Amendment itself, as the Court has allowed its protections to atrophy in the face of the perceived needs of law enforcement—especially notable when compared to the Court’s protection of free speech. And part of the problem is the traditional deference the Court has shown the political branches in all matters related to national security—even when national security regulations implicate free speech. If we are going to change constitutional doctrine, it will take a litigation strategy and a body of favorable rulings—a string of precedents of which the Court must take account. One place to look is state constitutional law, where the work of trying to preserve viable search and seizure protections in the digital age has already begun.

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The President’s Private Dictionary: How Secret Definitions Undermine Domestic and Transnational Efforts at Executive Branch Accountability

10.31228/osf.io/h7sdg ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Sudha N. Setty

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

European Union ◽

National Security ◽

The United States ◽

Executive Branch ◽

The European Union ◽

Privacy Rights ◽

Customer Data ◽

Legal Constraints ◽

The U.S

Published: Sudha Setty, The President's Private Dictionary: How Secret Definitions Undermine Domestic and Transnational Efforts at Executive Branch Accountability, 24 IND. J. GLOBAL LEGAL STUD. 513 (2017)..The 2016 EU-U.S. Privacy Shield is an agreement allowing companies to move customer data between the European Union and the United States without running afoul of heightened privacy protections in the European Union. It was developed in response to EU concerns that the privacy rights of its citizens have been systematically abrogated by the U.S. government in the name of national security, and contains a variety of assurances that the United States will respect and protect the privacy rights of EU citizens.How trustworthy are the U.S. assurances under the Privacy Shield? Both the Bush and Obama administrations secretly interpreted the terms of treaties, statutes and regulations in a manner that allowed them to take controversial actions, keep those actions secret, and later invoke national security to defend the legality of those actions if they became public. In cases involving torture, bulk data collection, and targeted killing, these administrations did so despite the common and objective understanding of applicable legal constraints not providing authorization for the very actions that they claimed were legal.It remains an open question as to whether the Trump administration will interpret the Privacy Shield in a similarly misleading manner: one in which public assurances suggest compliance with the Privacy Shield’s constraints, but the administration’s private interpretation of the Privacy Shield secretly breaches EU privacy protections. This paper considers possible ways to constrain the executive branch from relying on secret interpretations that would undermine the Privacy Shield’s transnational attempts at accountability

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Human Rights Extraterritoriality

10.1093/oso/9780198825210.003.0019 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Francesca Bignami ◽

Giorgio Resta

Keyword(s):

National Security ◽

International Law ◽

Personal Data ◽

Privacy Rights ◽

Intelligence Agency ◽

Self Interest ◽

The Law ◽

Security Surveillance ◽

The U.S ◽

The Eu

The chapter focuses on national security surveillance by spy agencies. The safeguards afforded for privacy under the law of national security surveillance in the U.S. and the EU appear to be motivated as much, if not more, by national self-interest as by a universal right to privacy. In the U.S., the law has traditionally protected the privacy rights of insiders far more assiduously than those of outsiders. In the EU, there is no power to act internally in the national security domain, but it has certain powers to regulate privacy externally, by setting the terms of intelligence-agency access to EU personal data. There are currently four such EU–U.S. agreements in place. Unsurprisingly, given the bilateral nature of these agreements, they reflect the traditional, self-interested logic of international law designed to further the interests of the parties to the agreement rather than the broader international community.

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Data Profiteering: Corporate Social Responsibility and Privacy Law Lost in Data Monetization and National Security

American Journal of Trade and Policy ◽

10.18034/ajtp.v7i1.484 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 37-xx

Author(s):

John B. Taschner

Keyword(s):

Corporate Social Responsibility ◽

Social Responsibility ◽

National Security ◽

Personal Data ◽

Social Contexts ◽

Privacy Rights ◽

Primary Case ◽

Underlying Assumption ◽

The Government ◽

Corporate Social

Data mining and collecting is increasingly becoming a common practice, in the name of monetization of personal data, progression of national security measures, and politically fueled democratic interferences. Millions of users’ data is constantly being sorted, manipulated, and sold, often without conscientious consent of the consumer. While this practice can result in greater convenience from an innocent consumer level, the vulnerabilities to national privacy and the cyberspace create dangerous territory. The article entitled describes the triangulation of security, monetization, and politicizing in terms of data collection through three primary case studies: Cambridge Analytica and the Facebook scandal during the 2016 United States presidential election, Apple v. FBI, and Edward Snowden and the NSA surveillance activities. It explores how data harvesting and subsequent monetization is embedded in virtually every aspect of our culture and develops understanding of how corporate social responsibility calls for companies to respect and maintain transparency with consumer interests. Current technology policies leaves open spaces for violation both internally and internationally, and why this constitutes certain offensive measures. Future data and privacy legislation, with strong consideration to the varying social contexts, resources, and current international relations. This is done under the underlying assumption that data is an irreplaceable factor in our global progression and is irrevocably embedded into our society. Over-regulation or under-regulation of big tech may lead to negative repercussions to our security or individual privacy rights. These ideas are becoming increasingly understood by the general public and are considered worthy of concern after seeing glimpses of the depth of surveillance and information held by either the government or corporations. While there are intense emotions and opinions on the matter, my article takes an objective and well-rounded perspective to address the interlocking complexities of individual freedoms, need for international cyberspace protection, and continued profitability of data. The idea of personal data and information being manipulated and used against citizens for financial or political agendas is rightfully horrifying the public; my article therefore takes into account these concerns while suggesting further navigating the political, legal, and social process in alignment with the ever-growing power of big data.

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