Digital age distorts rules of privacy

Digital age distorts rules of privacy

By Arshad Mohammed and Terence O'Hara
THE WASHINGTON POST

May 14, 2006

WASHINGTON – Phone companies know every number we dial. Grocery stores watch what we buy, search engines track what we look for on the Internet and banks count each penny we deposit or withdraw. All of that information could become available to the government as it works to thwart terrorist activity. The disclosure that the National Security Agency is amassing phone calling records for millions of Americans highlighted how blurred the notion of consumer privacy has become in the digital age.

It's difficult to know how much personal information may become available to government investigators because no single law governs how companies handle the data they collect about customers. Instead, there is a patchwork of statutes that prescribe varying rules on the privacy of everything from video store rentals and credit reports to medical data and phone logs. Beyond that, companies have privacy policies that are often impenetrable, leaving consumers unsure what rights, if any, they have. U.S. consumers have become accustomed to surrendering data in return for various conveniences – discounts at the grocery store, targeted advertising online – and some seem untroubled about sharing information with the government, particularly if it is in the interest of fighting terrorism.

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According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Friday, 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort. Another 35 percent said the program was unacceptable, including 24 percent who strongly objected to it.


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Millions of private financial transactions – only a tiny fraction of which involve criminal or terrorist activity – are in the database maintained by a Treasury Department agency known as the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. In its vast electronic files are transactions large and small, suspicious or mundane. FinCEN, as the agency is known within law enforcement circles and the financial industry, analyzes the database to identify suspicious flows of cash to individuals or groups of individuals who might be terrorists, money launderers, drug dealers, illegal arms merchants or other crooks. It also provides the data to more than 165 federal and local law enforcement agencies – from the FBI and Secret Service right down to the local sheriff. Even law enforcement agencies of foreign countries have access to the data under certain circumstances. The agency does this, under a system Congress and financial regulators developed over the past three decades, without oversight from the courts. FinCEN officials say that protecting the privacy of the information they receive from financial institutions is one of its top priorities. But just how, or even if, FinCEN shares its data on millions of U.S. citizens with intelligence agencies such as the NSA or CIA – which are generally prohibited from domestic surveillance – is difficult to determine. FinCEN spokesman Steven Hudak declined to comment on the matter.

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Even though Verizon Wireless said it did not participate in the program, its representatives have fielded calls from concerned customers. Colleen Holmes, a stay-at-home mother in Portland, Ore., reported an exchange with a Verizon Wireless customer agent that illustrated not only the dismay some Americans feel about the newly disclosed domestic surveillance but also the fear of terrorism that, for many, more than justifies the program. Holmes said she was so angry about reports that the government was collecting telephone calling records on millions of Americans that she called Verizon Wireless to explore canceling her service and switching to Qwest. “It's your constitutional right to voice your opinion,” she quoted the customer service agent as telling her. “If you want planes to fly into your building . . . ”


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