February 23, 2014 · 6:23 am

How Privacy Became Illegal

My latest piece, “How Privacy Became Illegal,” was just published this morning at PJ Media. Here’s a teaser:

“In his influential dissent in Olmstead v. United States, Supreme Court Justice Brandeis wrote:

[E]very unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

“Brandeis was the first in a decades-long line of justices who rejected the idea that whether a “search” has occurred depends on whether there was a physical trespass onto something protected by the Fourth Amendment (our “persons, houses, papers, and effects”).

“The trend culminated in what is now known as the “reasonable expectation of privacy” test from Katz v. United States. As of Katz, a Fourth Amendment search takes place whenever the government violates an actual expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable, whether or not there is a physical trespass.

“While the doctrine at first seemed to offer us more privacy protection than we had under the “trespass doctrine,” things quickly changed. …”

Read more here, and please comment, like and share if you enjoy it!

Also, if you haven’t yet, listen to my interview with Ladar Levison, founder of Lavabit (Edward Snowden’s former email service provider).

Finally, if you want to follow my work on privacy issues, “like” my Legalize Privacy page on Facebook.

Leave a comment

Filed under Politics, Technology

February 8, 2014 · 11:48 am

Human Beings vs. Today’s Government

I was glad to read that Twitter is considering suing the Obama Administration because of its unjust restrictions on Twitter’s ability to disclose information about government requests for user data. The Hill reports that Twitter’s head of global legal policy, Jeremy Kessell, blogged about his dissatisfaction with a recent agreement reached between tech companies and the Justice Department, an agreement that still restricts the companies disclosures to reporting a range of the number of requests received. Whereas the range before the agreement was 1 to 1,000 requests, now the range, for some categories of requests, is 1 to 250. How generous of the government!

The government says it has a compelling interest in restricting the disclosures, and that this justifies the reduction of customer trust—and therefore the reduction in business—that Twitter and other tech companies will suffer. Tell that to the homeowners in New London, Connecticut, who had their homes seized, and later bulldozed, in accordance with eminent domain law. Nine years after the United States Supreme Court upheld this use of eminent domain in the name of “economic development,” the land lies empty.

Twitter’s quest for greater transparency could be a nice complement to Lavabit founder Ladar Levison’s current legal battle with the U.S. Government. The government had an arguably valid order to obtain data on Lavabit’s most famous user, Edward Snowden. But if Levison had handed over his encryption keys as ordered, the government would have had access to account data of all Lavabit’s users, and Levison would have had no way to know whether the government was abusing that access. To hear more about Levison’s decision to shut down his company rather than surrender access to all his users’ data, listen to my Feb. 7 interview with him here.

Leave a comment

Filed under Politics

Tagged as , , , , ,

February 3, 2014 · 10:53 pm

Government and Innovation

Inspired by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who recently announced plans to use drones to deliver packages to Amazon customers thirty minutes from the time of placing an order, a Minnesota microbrewery, Lakemaid Beer, announced its own spin on drone delivery service: using drones to deliver cold beer to ice fishermen working on frozen lakes. Managing partner Jack Supple told the Wall Street Journal that he anticipated fewer safety issues for Lakemaid than for Amazon, as Amazon would have drones flying down city and residential streets, whereas Lakemaid would be flying the drones across flat, largely uninhabited lakes. Apparently Lakemaid had planned to start delivering beer via drone imminently—that is, until the FAA informed Supple that drone delivery of beer was indeed a commercial use of the technology, and therefore is prohibited until the FAA finally gets around to publishing regulations, sometime in 2015. Thankfully Lakemaid is willing to put its plans on hold until then. It is still unclear, however, how the FAA will compensate the ice fishermen unjustly deprived of beer.

Entrepreneurs in the United States are, unfortunately, well accustomed to the delays that come from government erecting obstacles along the path to innovation. What many are not quite as familiar with is government getting directly involved in the process, in an attempt to speed it up. The Wall Street Journal reports that ten companies are committed to…wait for it…a five-year plan, in which they will work alongside the National Institutes of Health to perform research leading to treatments or cures for Alzheimer’s, Diabetes, Rheumatoid Arthritis & Lupus. Some might see this effort to pool the best and brightest minds from leading drug companies as promising, but I’m skeptical. Can the “Accelerating Medicines Partnership” do what its name promises when, as WSJ reports, “NIH scientists will review progress and provide help with scientific decisions”? Given that our government will be picking up a larger and larger portion of the nation’s prescription drug tab in the near future, maybe the NIH scientists will “help” steer the “partnership” away from research likely to result in more expensive therapies? Even if they don’t, this program represents a significant expansion of fascist involvement of government in an industry that, with some exceptions and reservations, seems to be welcoming it.

Even though Steve Jobs is no longer at the helm, and even though it’s been unjustly harassed by antitrust litigation, Apple seems to be continuing its tradition of boldly expanding into new markets. The WSJ reports that the company is buying up Internet infrastructure at a rate consistent with its stated intention of revolutionizing the TV viewing experience. In addition, CEO Tim Cook recently said during a conference call that “Apple is on track to break into new product categories this year.” Moreover, Apple has hired executives with expertise in cable Internet infrastructure and TV research and development. (Read more here.) If our government stays out of the way, I am hopeful that Apple will provide an aesthetically pleasing, viable alternative to cable.

1 Comment

Filed under Politics, Technology

Tagged as , , , , ,