ACLU on what gov't can do with your Web surfing data under Patriot Act

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/14891res20011023.html

Wiretaps limited to transactional or addressing information are known as "Pen register/trap and trace" searches (for the devices that were used on telephones to collect telephone numbers). The requirements for getting a PR/TT warrant are essentially non-existent: the FBI need not show probable cause or even reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. It must only certify to a judge - without having to prove it - that such a warrant would be "relevant" to an ongoing criminal investigation. And the judge does not even have the authority to reject the application.

Pen register searches applied to the Internet

The Patriot Act applies the distinction between transactional and content-oriented wiretaps to the Internet. The problem is that it takes the weak standards for access to transactional data and applies them to communications that are far more than addresses. On an e-mail message, for example, law enforcement has interpreted the "header" of a message to be transactional information accessible with a PR/TT warrant. But in addition to routing information, e-mail headers include the subject line, which is part of the substance of a communication - on a letter, for example, it would clearly be inside the envelope.

The government also argues that the transactional data for Web surfing is a list of the URLs or Web site addresses that a person visits. For example, it might record the fact that they visited "http://aclu.org" at 1:15 in the afternoon, and then skipped over to "http://fbi.gov" at 1:30. This claim that URLs are just addressing data breaks down in two different ways:

Web addresses are rich and revealing content. The URLs or "addresses" of the Web pages we read are not really addresses, they are the titles of documents that we download from the Internet. When we "visit" a Web page what we are really doing is downloading that page from the Internet onto our computer, where it is displayed. Therefore, the list of URLs that we visit during a Web session is really a list of the documents we have downloaded - no different from a list of electronic books we might have purchased online. That is much richer information than a simple list of the people we have communicated with; it is intimate information that reveals who we are and what we are thinking about - much more like the content of a phone call than the number dialed. After all, it is often said that reading is a "conversation" with the author.

Web addresses contain communications sent by a surfer. URLs themselves often have content embedded within them. A search on the Google search engine, for example, creates a page with a custom-generated URL that contains material that is clearly private content, such as:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=sexual+orientation

Similarly, if I fill out an online form - to purchase goods or register my preferences, for example - those products and preferences will often be identified in the resulting URL.

[BlueIris]

1. Interesting. What do you think this means, re: the DoJ lawsuit against

Google?

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

2. I read something on that subject a few minutes ago...

...and I apologize, I didn't keep a record of the URL. The author basically said that the government was asking for a million URLs from search engine results and a week's worth of search engine hits, NOT personal data on who visited which sites and when. BUT...your ISP has ALL of that information, and if the government gets its way with this "request," it opens the door to subpoenas for ISPs.

A question that was asked about the wiretap debate...if the government does a check on someone and they end up NOT being an al Qaeda suspect, are they subsequently removed from "the list?" Do they go on a NEW list? Are they a suspect forever?

No one's answered this question. With a week's worth of Google searches, the government should be able to isolate MANY "enemies of the state"...you know, the ones who type in things like "Bush AWOL" and "Is Bush drinking again."

THOSE enemies.