Tyler Nicholson

CST 373
Post 9/11 Privacy
Privacy comes from trusting that people will respect information that should not
be shared openly. The other parties receiving the information from the source should be
considerate that they have the trust of that person and not spread what was shared. Those
that are around a private conversation should also show consideration for the group and
not pay attention to what is said and, if possible, those involved in the conversation
should take it away from public view. We should all, hopefully, be open and honest with
our immediate family members, eliminating secrecy among each other. Privacy is
something we are all granted, unless otherwise restricted, and as such be aware that some
people are more private than others.
My father instilled many of the views that I carry with me. I realize that my
circumstances and upbringing are not the same as others. Not everyone is capable of
having his or her ideal circumstances. Privacy views may never have a concrete
definition from one person to another; although, I hope that everyone would respect these
differences and be considerate to one another.(Nicholson,2013)
The above paragraphs are from the personal opinion on privacy paper. They
describe the thoughts of one man and in no instance are meant to speak for all. The
following paragraphs will, hopefully, shed light on how others view privacy based on
their culture backgrounds and political stances, post the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Through
the research conducted for this paper, the readers and writer will see how the views of
one compare to those of many.

Former President, George W. Bush, signed the Patriot Act into law, on October
26, 2001. The reason for this act being created was brought on by the World Trade Center
terrorist attacks, on September 11, 2001. The Patriot Act expanded the definition of
terrorism to include what is known as domestic terrorism. This is any act with the intent
of (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a
government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by
mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping. (aclu.org, 2002). These actions are only
classified as domestic within the United States and may be regarded as international
outside of the borders. This is a fairly well designed definition; however, it raises the
question of how domestic terrorism is monitored.
According to justice.gov the same methods used for decades to take down
organized crime are the same that are being used in terrorist investigations. These
methods have been updated to current technology. Search warrants can now be obtained
in any district in which terrorism-related activities occurred, regardless of where they will
be executed. This does not change the standards of availability though. Computer hacked
victims can now turn to law enforcement for assistance in apprehending the hacker. This
means that hacking victims have the same assistance as those that are victims of theft
because a hacker is classified as a trespasser.
The provisions of the Patriot Act seem beneficial to American citizens; however,
as Benjamin Franklin said so many years ago, They who can give up essential liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety(brainyquotes.com).
This is the point of conflict between those that supported the passing of the act and those
who opposed it. An extreme example of the belief behind those against the act is giving

up the right to bare arms for the idea that the government will use firearms to protect its
citizens making citizen owned firearms unnecessary.
While the previous example is not in the scope of this paper, the underlining
concept is still there. If the people are willing to give up their rights to privacy then,
according to the quote of a founding father, they deserve no privacy. The reasoning
behind the opposition of the act still holds. Privacy is seen as being compromised by the
act. This is due to the provisions provided to law enforcement for wiretapping.
Wiretapping is when a conversation is listened to by those not involved in it. This is a
crime without probable cause and the appropriate paperwork by law enforcement. The act
expands this probable cause to the realm of protesting. Protesting false under the second
definition of domestic terrorism, influencing the policy of a government by intimidation.
Though this is a grey area interpretation of this definition, it has led to activist groups
falling under domestic terrorism, even in situations where the given group may not have
actually used harmful means of intimidation.
This is not said to protect those actions which were harmful to those involved in
the act of protest and/or those around them, for those should be considered terrorist acts.
An issue that arises for those that are part of a group but not involved in a criminal act is
that should members partake in such actions, the property of others involved in the group
are subject to seizure of assets because of the broad spectrum the Patriot Act envelopes. It
states the following:
Section 806 amended the civil asset forfeiture statute to authorize the
government to seize and forfeit: all assets, foreign or domestic (i) of any individual,
entity, or organization engaged in planning or perpetrating any act of domestic or

international terrorism against the United States, or their property, and all assets, foreign
or domestic, affording any person a source of influence over any such entity or
organization or (ii) acquired or maintained by any person with the intent and for the
purpose of supporting, planning, conducting, or concealing an act of domestic or
international terrorism against the United States, citizens or residents of the United States
or their property or (iii) derived from, involved in, or used or intended to be used to
commit any act of domestic or international terrorism against the United States, citizens
or residents of the United States, or their property.(aclu.org, 2002).
The United States government can seize and/or freeze assets upon probable cause
of involvement in domestic terrorism. By this ability, an activist group that is primarily
helpful to those in distress, with a handful of radical members, may not be able to
contribute, donate, or assist those that need it because the groups assets were frozen due
to the actions of the radicals connected to them. The backlash on the entire group for
actions of a few is perceived as a destruction of rights and an invasion of privacy for
those being investigated that were not involved in the incident. The assets are often
seized and/or frozen without providing notice to the owner and before a proper hearing.
While it is reasonable that a convicted person should not have the ability to use his or her
assets, a non-convicted is innocent until proven guilty; therefore, he or she should
maintain the ability to use of his or her assets. If nothing else, owners should be notified
of a seizure and/ or freezing of assets no matter the situation. This is nothing more than a
courtesy to the detained.
On another note, a free person should have full rights to the Fourth Amendment.
This should not exempt him or her from being monitored if he or she is a suspect in a

crime. There was a Supreme Court case in 1979, Smith v. Maryland (Friedersdorf, 2013),
where this argument was brought into question. The victim saw a car parked near the
scene of a robbery. The woman then started receiving calls from an unknown caller and
the same car was seen driving by her house very slowly. Law enforcement connected the
plates to a man and requested the phone company to put a pen register on the mans
phone. The numbers recorded proved he had been the one calling. The argument in court
was that the pen register was done without a warrant and was therefore an invasion of
privacy. This did not hold in the trial because he willingly provided information to the
phone company and the company willingly supplied the pen register on the number for
the police, as well as, the pen register gave no information on the calls themselves
besides that the womans home number had been dialed by his home phone number. The
Supreme Court can no longer fall back to this simple reasoning because of how far
technology has come. Now, not only are the numbers dialed recorded by phone
companies, the content of these calls can be, and is, recorded too. The NSA can legally,
without warrant, listen to these conversations under probable cause. This is in the name
of security, which people like, but at the cost of privacy, which people dislike.
Social sites understand that people want security and their privacy at the same
time. In 2012, Facebook changed the way users use applications through the service by
separating the reading information from writing information authorizations. Users were
hindered from using applications because of having to forfeit the privacy of what they
were doing on the applications, but can now deny the applications from posting about
their actions. This does not change the fact that users have to forfeit, what is considered
public information, to use the applications.

While social sites are turning to more privacy setting, search sites, like Google,
are storing key words from all searches conducted and using this data for advertising
purposes. This means that any site that uses Google Advertising would market sites that
may or may not potentially interest the viewer. Some of these advertisement results are
on the right course, leading to traffic for the marketed site, and others are far from being
searches the user would conduct. This is because of a selection of words that occurred in
previous searches. This also does not take into account searches performed strictly for
research.
In the book, Click, Bill Tancer says how he conducted a data mining for what
time of the year is the most depressing and said that the data for the search depression
was not to be trusted alone because it did not take into account searches conducted by
students for papers on the Great Depression. To acquire accuracy, he performed a scan
for the most common antidepressant medications and compared the times of those
searches to those of the word depression to deduct the most depressing time of the year.
This was easy enough to deduct from simple search data mining; however, research on
what would be considered more private is not so easily acquired. Tancer tried to conduct
research on the adult entertainment but there were two problems. The first was he could
not rely on the producers alone because they would be inclined to inflate their earnings
for the purpose of funding appeal. The other was conducting a survey on the consumers
and how many would provide accurate information, if any at all.
Sexual interests are considered very personal and not what people want out in the
general publics view. To prevent this information from being exposed, individuals will
look up these adult entertainment sites on private windows, store the videos and/or

pictures on external hard drives, and/or simply deny the amount he or she views of the
content. The reasoning for such measures to conceal the information is easy enough to
explain as social standards. As a society, most tend to frown upon openly discussing such
forms of entertainment; therefore, making it considered private.
It is not only pornography which we conceal, especially after the exposing of the
NSA storing massive amounts of individuals web surfing and phone call information
without warrant. This led to many distrusting the government and caused many to attempt
encrypting everything and anything that they considered personal and to be kept
unexposed. The sad truth is that everyone hands their information out knowingly, on the
notion of trust, to companies whenever they place orders online or sign up for a
membership. All of this data is stored somewhere and somehow and can be accessed
whenever needed or desired. The NSA stated that they do not sift through the data unless
there is probable cause to, but that can be anything from a red flagged word to organizing
a bombing. The vague outlining of what classifies as probable cause leaves much to the
discretion of those with the power. As the saying goes, We must trust that those in
power will not abuse their power. The only problem is how far will the people trust
those that violate privacy in the name of security.
It is not always apparent that privacy has been breached for the feeling of
security. We willingly, and sometimes gladly, provide our medical information to those
whose careers revolve around confidentially between doctor and patient for the sake of
the patients well being. People understand that doctors will send records between each
other as necessary for assisting the patient. The uneasy feeling comes with the idea of

mass sharing this information. There are websites that people can access to quickly get
assistance with healthcare from practitioners. How is this accomplished?
Our steady growth and leading edge technologies have proven that merging and
managing patients medical records from multiple EHR providers is not only possible, it's
easily achieved with the right combination of philosophy, technology and
partnership.(accessmyrecords.com)
This explains that those on the other side of this site can quickly access all of the
users medical information. The information that was once held by individual doctors and
released between them with full understanding from the patient is now collectively
acquired at the press of a key. Do the people mind this happening? It would appear not
because the records are still being shared just between doctors and it is all for the
peoples sake of well being. However, security is also in the name of well being and
because the information is collectively being stored the government can also acquire the
medical records quite easily. The question is why would the government want so many
different records, from search history to medical records? There is a very simple
explanation for it - knowledge is power.
By holding the data of ones behavior and health, an entity can predict or even
know what the individual will do and when, all the way to even the reason for the action.
Humans are after all creatures of habit. While we may not agree to have an identification
card with our daily lives, as a tracker would be seen as an invasion of privacy, we already
do in more than one form. We carry drivers licenses and our cars all have registration
papers, which allow for law enforcement to quickly pull records on the driver from their
database during a stop. This information pulled shows warrants or if the person can

legally drive, among other information. The cellphones we carry have a convenient
ability to provide us with information about our location, which means that the
cellphones track upon opening such an application that requires GPS. The catch to having
convenience at our fingertips is that so does the government because even when the
applications are not running the GPS is still tracking; and, with probable cause, the NSA
or related agency can locate an individual instantly. The only difference between what we
carry now and an all-in-one identification card is that people associate the individual
pieces with the government separate from the rest. People also take security in the fact
that all of their information is not centralized. The reality now is that we voluntarily carry
a cellphone that has more information on it than we may realize. As the ability of our
handheld computers grow, we will naturally store more information on them for our
personal convenience, naturally, behind passwords.
Chinas government realized that it would be a catastrophe if the people could
instantly access information from around the world so the government put its own
passwords to conceal such information. They accomplished this in the form of
censorship, the blocking of specific types of sites and charging companies with the
removal of posts speaking out against officials. They also require that, while others will
see a username, that users register their real identities first. This censorship and tracking
allows for the government to keep the power over the people, especially with the threat of
being arrested for speaking out against it.
Some would argue that this is irrelevant to the United States, but there is evidence
to prove otherwise. While the Internet is not censored from the citizens, it is monitored
and processed, and even used for the benefit of an entity. This directly relates to Chinas

government benefiting from having companies go through and remove posts on forums
and related discussion boards. The scariest relevance, however, is that, with the Patriot
Act, a post against the government is enough probable cause to pull all of a persons
information and put surveillance on him or her, which can lead to the individual
eventually being arrested for complaining about the government - something that is
already happening in China. People will instinctively disregard this as an extreme that our
government would never threaten to do because it would be in violation of our First
Amendment right to freedom of speech, but this is blind trust.
It is true that the government should not be able to issue such a threat to its
people, but it can. It can because we allowed for it to. We handed over our privacy for the
sake of security and in the process our freedoms have diminished. The cause for the
exchange was the fear of the people for their security, after the terrorist attacks of 9/11,
and the turn to government for the hope of protection. The government then hurried a
vaguely written documentation through voting and it passed. It passed because it is what
the people wanted. As pointed out by Etzioni, a tendency to over steer in one
direction or the other. (Etzioni, 2004) By trying to provide what the people called for,
they gave too much room for those in power to take advantage of it. While it would be
hard to say it was intentional or not, the fact that it has not been corrected is an issue.
The ones we should trust to correct the issue and repair our privacy have not, and
possibly, will never do so. The government claims it is being courteous with the
information it collects but there is no public information available to check if this is true
or not. We are unknowingly stepping in the direction of China, where we are releasing
our freedoms for security, that the government cannot actually guarantee. The

information once thought, as being confidential is now available without warrant to law
enforcement on the grounds of probable cause. The only thing we have left is our votes
against such Big Brother methods.

References
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http://www.accessmyrecords.com/aboutus.html
American Civil Liberties Union. (2002, December 6). How the USA PATRIOT Act
redefines Domestic Terrorism. Obtained from: https://www.aclu.org/nationalsecurity/how-usa-patriot-act-redefines-domestic-terrorism
Bradsher, Keith. (2012, December 28). China Toughens Its Restrictions on Use of the
Internet. Obtained from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/29/world/asia/china-toughensrestrictions-on-internet-use.html?ref=internetcensorship&_r=0
Darwell, Brittany. (2012, December 12). Facebook redesigns privacy controls, activity
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Etzioni, Amitai. (1999). The Limits of Privacy.
Friedersdorf, Conor. (2013, December 30). The Supreme Court Logic That Could
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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/the-supreme-court-logic-that-coulddestroy-privacy-in-america/282697/
The USA PATRIOT Act: Preserving Life and Liberty. Obtained from:
http://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm

pewresearch.org. (2013, June 7). Balancing Act: National Security and Civil Liberties in
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Tancer, Bill. (2008). What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why It Matters.
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Wikipedia. (n.a.).Patriot Act. Obtained from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act