John Whitehead's Commentary
No Place to Hide: Living in the Surveillance State
Wherever you go and whatever you do, you are being watched.
When you use your cell phone, you leave a record of when the call was placed, who you called, how long it lasted and even where you were at the time. When you use your ATM card, you leave a record of where and when you used the card. There is even a video camera at most locations.
But there is more. Under the USA Patriot Act, your bank is required to analyze your transaction for any patterns that raise suspicion and to see if you are connected to any objectionable people--ostensibly in the hunt for terrorists. If there are questions, your bank alerts the government, which shares such information with intelligence and law enforcement agencies across the country (local, county, state and federal).
When you buy food at the supermarket, purchase a shirt online or through a toll-free number, etc., these transactions are recorded by data collection and information companies. In this way, you are specifically targeted as a particular type of consumer by private companies. But as if that were not worrisome enough, government intelligence agencies routinely collect these records--billions of them--about what you have done and where you have lived your entire life--every house or apartment, all your telephone numbers, the cars you've owned, ad infinitum.
With the slightest mistake, however, you can be branded for life. Take, for example, Matthew Frost of Tampa, Fla., a businessman and father of two who simply wanted to vote in the 2000 presidential election. When he attempted to cast a ballot, the election worker told him: "Sorry, sir, you have a felony. You can't vote." Although it was a mistake and Frost had never been convicted of a felony, he still was not allowed to vote.
Frost was a victim of a botched attempt by government officials to use a private data contractor "to help purge the electoral votes of felons and other ineligible people," writes Robert O'Harrow in his revealing book No Place to Hide (2005). This was "a glaring demonstration of what can happen when the government and private data services team up to target individuals," notes O'Harrow. "The use of computerized personal information can--and often does--spin out of control."
The company behind Frost's exclusion was ChoicePoint, a Georgia-based organization that acts as a database of personal information. Their website boasts of being "the nation's leading provider of identification and credential verification services." Commonly referred to as a commercial data-broker, ChoicePoint provides companies with information on potential employees, insurance companies with information regarding the risk of new clients and law enforcement agencies and homeland security with information on suspects of crimes.
ChoicePoint is a private intelligence agency. Since 1997, ChoicePoint has bought 58 companies. As O'Harrow states in a recent interview (www.democracynow.org), these "include a genetic repository, biometrics, fingerprint, they are becoming a fingerprint specialist. They've got something like 19 billion records, and they have become, they say, the nation's largest background screener. So that when you try to get a job, there's a chance that the company is going to ChoicePoint to check your background out.... And one fellow who's concerned about it called it that we're moving toward a 'scarlet letter' society where you--you are branded for life for whatever you did when you were 19 and foolish."
Recently, however, the company discovered that it had allowed criminals to access its database. Thieves gained access by using stolen identities to create seemingly legitimate businesses. They then formed 50 ChoicePoint accounts and were able to gain access to individuals' names, addresses, Social Security numbers and credit reports. ChoicePoint stated that 144,778 people may have been affected by the security breach.
ChoicePoint's security breach has raised serious concerns regarding identity theft. However, Americans should take note of the frightening relationship between commercial data-brokers such as ChoicePoint and their main rival LexisNexis and government agencies. A large portion of the commercial data-broker's business comes from government contracts. In fact, ChoicePoint has individual websites for federal agencies such as www.cpgov.com. On these sites, only government officials can access information. Government and law enforcement agencies commonly use the information ChoicePoint has assembled in order to aid criminal investigations and homeland security.
The federal government has turned to commercial databases for information because they are not allowed to collect the data themselves. In 1974, Congress passed the Privacy Act, which made it illegal for the government to form a database. It was feared that such a database would be an invasion of privacy. As a result of this act, the federal government cannot simply probe into the lives of Americans whenever it wants. But the Act only prevents the government from creating a database. At the time the law was being passed, Congress had no reason to suspect that private corporations would ever have the desire or means to create such a database. However, through ChoicePoint, government intelligence and police agencies are able to gain information on private citizens by simply logging onto ChoicePoint's website. Therefore, it is now completely legal for the government to gain access to the information Congress felt was a danger to civil rights for them to collect in the first place.
Not only are such databases legal, they are also unregulated. ChoicePoint claims it realizes the extreme power it has and takes steps to keep itself in check. Chief Marketing Officer James Lee explains, "It sounds counterintuitive, but we are far more accountable than the federal government or state government or any other government agency. We don't believe in violating anybody's privacy. We don't want any information that we shouldn't have. And what information we do have, we don't want to share it in any way it shouldn't be shared."
In light of their recent security breach, however, one must wonder just how good a job of self-regulation ChoicePoint is doing. Since the public cannot access the government sites, who knows just what information ChoicePoint has on individuals? Even the sites the public can access make self-checking very complicated. There is simply no way to ensure that ChoicePoint is staying within its self-imposed regulations.
We may have gone beyond the point of no return. In fact, even if invasive laws such as the Patriot Act were to be overturned, ChoicePoint and corporations like it would continue collecting data on us. And since there are no laws on how the government uses the data collected by these private companies, this massive invasion of privacy will continue.
In his classic 1961 farewell address, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex. But we are now in a new paradigm--one more serious than that which alarmed Eisenhower. As Robert O'Harrow says, "If you change the word military industrial complex to security industrial complex," then what is happening to us becomes clear. Eisenhower "warned about unaccountable power, and that's really what we are dealing with here."
When you use your cell phone, you leave a record of when the call was placed, who you called, how long it lasted and even where you were at the time. When you use your ATM card, you leave a record of where and when you used the card. There is even a video camera at most locations.
But there is more. Under the USA Patriot Act, your bank is required to analyze your transaction for any patterns that raise suspicion and to see if you are connected to any objectionable people--ostensibly in the hunt for terrorists. If there are questions, your bank alerts the government, which shares such information with intelligence and law enforcement agencies across the country (local, county, state and federal).
When you buy food at the supermarket, purchase a shirt online or through a toll-free number, etc., these transactions are recorded by data collection and information companies. In this way, you are specifically targeted as a particular type of consumer by private companies. But as if that were not worrisome enough, government intelligence agencies routinely collect these records--billions of them--about what you have done and where you have lived your entire life--every house or apartment, all your telephone numbers, the cars you've owned, ad infinitum.
With the slightest mistake, however, you can be branded for life. Take, for example, Matthew Frost of Tampa, Fla., a businessman and father of two who simply wanted to vote in the 2000 presidential election. When he attempted to cast a ballot, the election worker told him: "Sorry, sir, you have a felony. You can't vote." Although it was a mistake and Frost had never been convicted of a felony, he still was not allowed to vote.
Frost was a victim of a botched attempt by government officials to use a private data contractor "to help purge the electoral votes of felons and other ineligible people," writes Robert O'Harrow in his revealing book No Place to Hide (2005). This was "a glaring demonstration of what can happen when the government and private data services team up to target individuals," notes O'Harrow. "The use of computerized personal information can--and often does--spin out of control."
The company behind Frost's exclusion was ChoicePoint, a Georgia-based organization that acts as a database of personal information. Their website boasts of being "the nation's leading provider of identification and credential verification services." Commonly referred to as a commercial data-broker, ChoicePoint provides companies with information on potential employees, insurance companies with information regarding the risk of new clients and law enforcement agencies and homeland security with information on suspects of crimes.
ChoicePoint is a private intelligence agency. Since 1997, ChoicePoint has bought 58 companies. As O'Harrow states in a recent interview (www.democracynow.org), these "include a genetic repository, biometrics, fingerprint, they are becoming a fingerprint specialist. They've got something like 19 billion records, and they have become, they say, the nation's largest background screener. So that when you try to get a job, there's a chance that the company is going to ChoicePoint to check your background out.... And one fellow who's concerned about it called it that we're moving toward a 'scarlet letter' society where you--you are branded for life for whatever you did when you were 19 and foolish."
Recently, however, the company discovered that it had allowed criminals to access its database. Thieves gained access by using stolen identities to create seemingly legitimate businesses. They then formed 50 ChoicePoint accounts and were able to gain access to individuals' names, addresses, Social Security numbers and credit reports. ChoicePoint stated that 144,778 people may have been affected by the security breach.
ChoicePoint's security breach has raised serious concerns regarding identity theft. However, Americans should take note of the frightening relationship between commercial data-brokers such as ChoicePoint and their main rival LexisNexis and government agencies. A large portion of the commercial data-broker's business comes from government contracts. In fact, ChoicePoint has individual websites for federal agencies such as www.cpgov.com. On these sites, only government officials can access information. Government and law enforcement agencies commonly use the information ChoicePoint has assembled in order to aid criminal investigations and homeland security.
The federal government has turned to commercial databases for information because they are not allowed to collect the data themselves. In 1974, Congress passed the Privacy Act, which made it illegal for the government to form a database. It was feared that such a database would be an invasion of privacy. As a result of this act, the federal government cannot simply probe into the lives of Americans whenever it wants. But the Act only prevents the government from creating a database. At the time the law was being passed, Congress had no reason to suspect that private corporations would ever have the desire or means to create such a database. However, through ChoicePoint, government intelligence and police agencies are able to gain information on private citizens by simply logging onto ChoicePoint's website. Therefore, it is now completely legal for the government to gain access to the information Congress felt was a danger to civil rights for them to collect in the first place.
Not only are such databases legal, they are also unregulated. ChoicePoint claims it realizes the extreme power it has and takes steps to keep itself in check. Chief Marketing Officer James Lee explains, "It sounds counterintuitive, but we are far more accountable than the federal government or state government or any other government agency. We don't believe in violating anybody's privacy. We don't want any information that we shouldn't have. And what information we do have, we don't want to share it in any way it shouldn't be shared."
In light of their recent security breach, however, one must wonder just how good a job of self-regulation ChoicePoint is doing. Since the public cannot access the government sites, who knows just what information ChoicePoint has on individuals? Even the sites the public can access make self-checking very complicated. There is simply no way to ensure that ChoicePoint is staying within its self-imposed regulations.
We may have gone beyond the point of no return. In fact, even if invasive laws such as the Patriot Act were to be overturned, ChoicePoint and corporations like it would continue collecting data on us. And since there are no laws on how the government uses the data collected by these private companies, this massive invasion of privacy will continue.
In his classic 1961 farewell address, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex. But we are now in a new paradigm--one more serious than that which alarmed Eisenhower. As Robert O'Harrow says, "If you change the word military industrial complex to security industrial complex," then what is happening to us becomes clear. Eisenhower "warned about unaccountable power, and that's really what we are dealing with here."
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
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