Just in time for May Day, the Obama administration released a report recommending limits on how corporations use customer data while totally ignoring any mention of pervasive government surveillance activities. The report, authored by Obama advisor John Podesta, is seen primarily as the Obama administration’s response to Edward Snowden‘s disclosures regarding the online surveillance activities by the US National Security Agency (NSA).
It’s a clumsy deflection. The Obama administration, confronted with the Snowden disclosures, responds by basically saying, “hey corporations are doing this too only more and worse.” Tom Hamburger and Hayley Tsukayama writing for the Washington Post cite Podesta saying in a press call that “‘It’s in no way hypocritical’ for the White House to speak out on these issues in light of the NSA disclosures.” No, of course it’s not.
Podesta makes several policy recommendations:
- Implementation of a national data breach law requiring corporations to report major breaches
- Legislation providing consumer rights regarding how activity data is used
- Extension of privacy protections for non-citizens
- Restriction of use of student data to educational purposes
- Restriction of use of data for discrimination
- Updating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA)
Tech companies refuse subpoenas, demand warrants
Meanwhile corporations in the US technology sector — largely the target of Podesta’s report — have stopped silently complying with the government’s secret and warrantless demands for their users’ online data and have begun insisting that users have the right to know when their data is being sought. Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have all begun to notify users of pending data seizures except those accompanied by a judicial gag order. Twitter began notifying its users of data seizures several years ago. Instead of a subpoena — which can be issued by any officer of the court who deems the information sought to be “relevant” to an investigation — these companies are insisting on warrants — which can be issued only by a judge with probable cause — before disclosing user data.
Data seizures approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) are automatically secret by law and not subject to these actions by the tech companies.
Craig Timberg writing for the Washington Post reports, “Companies that already routinely notify users have found that investigators often drop data demands to avoid having suspects learn of inquiries.”
PCAST report
A second report from the Obama administration, a technical assessment (.pdf; 764.3KB) from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), recommended that policy focus primarily on the use of collected data from users rather than its actual collection. In short, corporations should be allowed to collect pretty much whatever user data they like but should be regulated in how they use it. Yeah, that’s a great idea. Besides, the corporations argue, it’s just too hard to regulate data collection and hey, datamining creates jobs for them and wealth for us.
Hot on the heels of both reports, Spencer Ackerman writing for the Guardian reports that President Obama has quietly asked the US Congress to provide legal immunity for telecommunications firms that cooperate with government surveillance requests for customer data. Obama’s request is basically an extension of a provision of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies that cooperated with the government’s warrantless wiretapping program instituted by President George W. Bush.
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Obama administration calls for limits on commercial data; ignores government surveillance was originally published by ARTS & FARCES internet on Wednesday, 14 May 2014 at 7:05 AM CDT. Copyright © ARTS & FARCES LLC. All rights reserved. | ISSN: 1535-8119 | OCLC: 48219498 | Digital fingerprint: 974a89ee1284e6e92dd256bbfbef3751 (64.237.45.114)