Week 11

National Security Letters (NSLs)

• Compel holders of personal records to turn them over to the government
• Not subject to judicial review or oversight
• Includes a gag provision, prohibiting NSL recipients from revealing that the government has requested an individual's records

Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices

• Pen register: A device that records electronic impulses to identify the numbers dialed for outgoing calls
• Trap and trace: A device that records the originating number of incoming calls for a particular phone number

Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA)

• Requires the telecommunications industry to build tools into their products for use by federal investigators, after obtaining a court order, to intercept communications
• Gives sweeping new powers to domestic law enforcement and U.S. international intelligence agencies
• Increases ability to search telephone, email, medical, financial, and other records
• Passed five weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001

Fair Information Practices

• A set of guidelines that govern the collection and use of personal data
• Form the underlying basis for many national laws addressing data privacy and data protection issues

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

• International organization that sets policies and produces agreements on topics for which multilateral consensus is required
• OECD fair information practices guidelines comprise eight principles:
  • Collection limitation
  • Data quality
  • Purpose specification
  • Use limitation
  • Security safeguards
  • Openness principle
  • Individual participation
  • Accountability

European Union Data Protection Directive

• Ensures that data transferred to non-European Union countries is protected
• Only U.S. companies certified as meeting certain "safe harbor" principles are allowed to process and store data of European consumers and companies

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

• Grants citizens the right to access certain information and records of federal, state, and local governments upon request
• Two basic requirements for a FOIA request:
  • The request must not require wide-ranging, unreasonable, or burdensome searches for records
  • The request must be made according to procedural regulations published in the Federal Register

Privacy Act

• Sets rules for the collection, use, and dissemination of personal data kept by federal agencies
• Prohibits U.S. government agencies from concealing the existence of any personal data record-keeping system

Consumer Profiling

• Information about web surfers can be obtained through:
  • Voluntary methods: Website registrations, surveys, contests, and social media
  • Cookies: Text files that can be downloaded to the hard drives of users who visit a website, so that the website is able to identify visitors on subsequent visits
  • Tracking software: Allows a website to analyze browsing habits and deduce personal interests and preferences

Workplace Monitoring

• Cyberloafing: Using the Internet for purposes unrelated to work
• Private employers may legally monitor employees' use of any employer-provided mobile phone or computing device
• The Fourth Amendment does not limit how a private employer treats its employees
• State privacy statutes tend to favor employers over employees

Advanced Surveillance Technology

• Camera surveillance:
  • Used in major cities around the world to deter crime and terrorist activities
  • Criticism: Such scrutiny is a violation of civil liberties and the cost of the equipment and people required to monitor the video feeds is excessive
• Vehicle event data recorder (EDR):
  • Records vehicle and occupant data for a few seconds before, during, and after any vehicle crash severe enough to deploy the vehicle's air bags
  • Purposes: To capture and record data to make changes to improve vehicle performance and for use in a court of law to determine what happened during a vehicle accident

This quiz covers the features and implications of National Security Letters, including gag provisions, judicial review, and surveillance methods like pen registers and trap and trace devices.