The Patriot Act - Domestic Spying

by



       M. Richard Maxson



      The deadline for the renewal of the Patriot Act is the end of this week and even with the massive uproar over this unconstitutional piece of legislation, especially section 215, there is still no consensus. The true colors of many Republicans and Democrats are coming to light with their insistence that, regardless of the Constitution, they want to extend ALL portions of the act. If the fourth amendment is ignored again by the three branches of government, does the United States still REALLY exist?
                               
                                                         SECTION 215 -DOMESTIC SPYING 

       The NSA is extremely interested in OUR new form of communication which has experienced such breathtaking success in recent years: smartphones About 130 million people in the US have such a device. The mini-computers have become personal communication centers, digital assistants and life coaches, and they often know more about their users than most users suspect. For an agency like the NSA, the data storage units are a goldmine, combining in a single device almost all the information that would interest an intelligence agency: social contacts, details about the user's behavior and location, interests (through search terms, for example), photos and sometimes credit card numbers and passwords.

      

      In exploiting the smartphone, the intelligence agency takes advantage of the carefree approach many users take to the device. According to one NSA presentation, smartphone users demonstrate "nomophobia," or "no mobile phobia." The only thing many users worry about is losing reception. A detailed NSA presentation titled, "Does your target have a smartphone?" shows how extensive the surveillance methods against users of Apple's popular iPhone already are. According to one NSA document, these files contain the kind of information that is of particular interest to analysts, such as lists of contacts, call logs and drafts of text messages. To sort out such data, the analysts don't even require access to the iPhone itself, the document indicates. The department merely needs to infiltrate the target's computer, with which the smartphone is synchronized, in advance. Under the heading "iPhone capability," the NSA specialists list the kinds of data they can analyze in these cases. The document notes that there are small NSA programs, known as "scripts," that can perform surveillance on 38 different features of the iPhone 3 and 4 operating systems. They include the mapping feature, voicemail and photos, as well as the Google Earth, Facebook and Yahoo Messenger applications. The NSA analysts are especially enthusiastic about the geolocation data stored in smartphones and many of their apps, data that enables them to determine a user's whereabouts at a given time. The bottom line is that if you own a smartphone you are already compromised. Once your entire life is connected and online, some company somewhere will end up knowing you better than you know yourself.
 

          If this legislation is left to stand the future of personal
privacy is over. The big boys already have plans in place. Imagine if every single gadget in your life was "smart." Your self-driving car could let your house know you're on the way home so it can adjust the thermostat and kick on the lights. Maybe your smartwatch knows from your vital signs you had a stressful day, so it has your car activate some soothing music that transfers seamlessly to your home stereo when you walk in the door. It could even tell your smart tub to draw a bath. Your fridge could detect that you're out of milk. Your smart mattress notes that you didn't sleep well. The possibilities are endless. Controlling your home from a distance and getting gadgets to talk to each other sounds like science fiction, but it's real and companies are working to make the scenarios I gave above a reality. This so-called "Internet of Things" could be the next big advance in human culture and lifestyle.

      

      There's a key word in the "Internet of Things" that's always troubling and that's "Internet." To work together, gadgets have to connect to the Internet and upload their data to the company that made them. While this data is supposed to be anonymous, don't think for a second that companies aren't thinking about ways to sell your data or serve you ads to boost their revenue. It doesn't help that every gadget out there has a unique privacy policy, and most of them aren't very specific. We saw that firsthand earlier this year when the news broke that Samsung smart TVs were listening to their owners' private conversations.

      This is going to be the next big breach in your personal privacy. In fact, it could already be affecting you. One recurring theme of connected gadgets so far is that the manufacturers haven't thought enough about security. Every new gadget has weak points that hackers can use to get your information, from smart thermostats to car insurance and life insurance trackers. Just the other day, we found out that poor security in drug pumps could let a hacker take over and sabotage an entire hospital's critical care equipment.

       That's bad enough when gadgets are working on their own and hackers have to tap into each one individually. However, when every gadgets is connected through a central service, like Apple's HealthKit or whatever Google, Microsoft, Honeywell and other companies are cooking up, a hacker will only need to break into one thing to see your entire life. A burglar will know when you aren't at home and probably what security system you have. Scammers will know if you're having health problems, what you eat, what music you listen to and other things that could make it easy to trick you into giving up even more information in an email or on the phone. A practical joker could mess with your lights, music, temperature, coffee, laundry or even your car. And, of course, because everything is tied together, an identity thief could really take over your entire life.

       That just leaves the question of what you can do about it? If the country is to be saved the citizens MUST engage in the

running of the society. Any public official that endorses the status quo has cast aside their oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution; they rejected his oath to enforce all federal laws faithfully; and they are moving the government decidedly in the direction of secret laws, secret procedures and secret courts. Such purported statutory authority directly violates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to privacy in our "persons, houses, papers and effects." That includes just about everything held by the custodians of our records. Privacy is not only a constitutional right protected by the document; it is also a natural right. We possess the right to privacy by virtue of our humanity. Our rights come from within us -- whether you believe we are the highest progression of biological forces or the intended creations of an Almighty God.