cyberenviro | eportfolio

gregory donovan's eportfolio (a syndication of cyberenviro.org)

Archive for 9/11

DefenseTech: Cyber Terrorism Now Tops List of U.S. Security Concerns

From the article: In the shadow of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States finds itself facing a different threat from terrorists. Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano recently stated that, “The U.S. has become ‘categorically safer’ since 9/11, but cyber-terrorism now tops the list of security concerns.”

DefenseTech: Cyber Terrorism Now Tops List of U.S. Security Concerns

From the article: In the shadow of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States finds itself facing a different threat from terrorists. Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano recently stated that, “The U.S. has become ‘categorically safer’ since 9/11, but cyber-terrorism now tops the list of security concerns.”

Government Hypocrisy: Protect Intellectual Property, Collect Personal Data

Mike German, ACLU policy counsel and former FBI agent, was recently on Reason.tv discussing domestic surveillance in post-9/11 America. German covers the U.S. government’s growing interest in collecting personal data, the development of data fusion centers, and the erosion of existing privacy protections.

Speaking specifically about the 4th Amendment, Brown explains:

The way the 4th Amendment protections work with your personal papers, requires probable cause and a warrant before the government can search your desk to look through your papers. Unfortunately, now most of our personal papers are kept on 3rd party servers. It’s our email that’s stored remotely. Every thought that we have we hit the search engines to find out more about the subject we’re thinking bout. All that gets recorded by 3rd parties, and that information doesn’t have the same 4th Amendment protections.

The hypocrisy is extraordinary. For decades the U.S. government has extended and enhanced intellectual property protections. The rationale has been that the laws governing property ownership in the physical environment must also apply in the digital environment. Downloading a Beatles album from Pirate Bay is treated the same as shoplifting a Beatles album from Walmart. But, when it comes to personal property in the digital environment (i.e. your data) we see an erosion of what little protections existed in the physical environment. In short: protect intellectual property, collect personal data.

We Will Remember (Your Every Move)

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN > The Apple of Its Eye: Security and Surveillance Pervades Post-9/11 NYC LA TIMES > A Key Sept. 11 Legacy: More Domestic Surveillance WIRED > How 9/11 Completely Changed Surveillance in U.S. MARKETPLACE > 9/11′s Effect on Tech AP > Documents Show NY Police Watched Devout Muslims
We Will Remember (You)

LA Times: More Domestic Surveillance Is A Key 9/11 Legacy

From the article: “U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies now collect, store and analyze vast quantities of digital data produced by law-abiding Americans. The data mining receives limited congressional oversight, rare judicial review and almost no public scrutiny. Thanks to new laws and technologies, authorities track and eavesdrop on Americans as they never could before, hauling in billions of bank records, travel receipts and other information. In several cases, they have wiretapped conversations between lawyers and defendants, challenging the legal principle that attorney-client communication is inviolate.”