DHS Official Thinks People Should Have To Give Up Their Anonymity To Use The Internet

from the screwing-the-nation-for-the-good-of-the-nation dept

Apparently, the only way to stop terrorists from hating us for our freedom is to strip away those offensive freedoms.

Erik Barnett, the DHS's attache to the European Union, pitched some freedom-stripping ideas to a presumably more receptive audience via an article for a French policy magazine. Leveraging both the recent Paris attacks and the omnipresent law enforcement excuse for any bad idea -- child porn -- Barnett suggested victory in the War on Terror can be achieved by stripping internet users of their anonymity. You know, all of them, not just the terrorists.

After a short anecdote about a successful child porn prosecution in Europe. Barnett gets straight to the point. Here's Kieren McCarthy of The Register.

Before we have an opportunity to celebrate, however, Barnett jumps straight to terrorism. "How much of the potential jihadists' data should intelligence agencies or law enforcement be able to examine to protect citizenry from terrorist attack?", he poses. The answer, of course, is everything.

Then the pitch: "As the use of technology by human beings grows and we look at ethical and philosophical questions surrounding ownership of data and privacy interests, we must start to ask how much of the user's data is fair game for law enforcement to protect children from sexual abuse?"

In short, if you value internet-related freedoms, you're basically supporting terrorism and child porn. No person -- especially no legislator -- would want to be seen as valuing personal freedoms over the good of the nation's infrastructure/children. And, because terrible ideas must be buttressed by terrible analogies, Barnett theorizes that the internet is basically a car.

"When a person drives a car on a highway, he or she agrees to display a license plate. The license plate's identifiers are ignored most of the time by law enforcement [unless] the car is involved in a legal infraction or otherwise becomes a matter of public interest. Similarly, should not every individual be required to display a 'license plate' on the digital super-highway?"

To use the Fourth Amendment for a moment, a lowered expectation of privacy is in play when operating a vehicle on public roads. However, the Fourth Amendment affords a great deal of privacy to the interior of people's homes. Because the government (in most cases) does not provide internet access, it has no basis to demand ongoing access to citizens' internet activities. It may acquire this information (along with subscriber info) using search warrants and subpoenas during the course of investigations, but it cannot demand (or at least shouldn't) -- for national security reasons or otherwise -- that every internet user be immediately identifiable.

Discussions of requiring a license for internet usage have been raised previously but rarely go anywhere. To do so is to start heading down the path to totalitarianism. Unfortunately, being in a constant state of war against an ambiguous foe often results in legislators and government officials declaring their interest in seeing this path not only surveyed, but the first layer of asphalt applied.

Barnett is one of this number, and he wants a strawman to serve as construction foreman.

"Social media is used to generate support for terrorist groups ... How appropriate is the law enforcement engagement of the social media companies to reveal digital fingerprints of these extremist groups? Who determines the level of 'extremism' of a group? Few would disagree that law enforcement and intelligence services should have the ability..."

Actually, lots of people would disagree, starting with many citizens and running all the way up to their service providers. On top of that, the nation's courts would find the institution of a law that strips the anonymity of internet users to be unconstitutional, so that's another hurdle Barnett and like-minded officials would not be able to clear, no matter their stated justification.

Filed Under: anonymity, dhs, erik barnett, internet, internet license, surveillance

Ontario Police Inspector Says He Wants A 'Driver's License For The Internet'

from the 'for-the-children,-although,-technically,-children-aren't-old-enough-to dept

Canada's lawful access/cyberbullying bill (C-13) is still creeping through the country's legislative arteries and generally getting worse as time goes on -- as is to be expected when adding cyberbullying to a long list of presumably thwartable horrors like terrorism, child molestation and drug smuggling. What's desired by many is a generous expansion of government and law enforcement powers. And those desiring this expansion have the horrific scenarios needed to back up their requests for more access.

The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs has begun its hearings on the proposed law, opening with an appearance by law enforcement representatives. Michael Geist reports:

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) was part of the law enforcement panel and was asked by Senator Tom McInnis, a Conservative Senator from Nova Scotia, about what other laws are needed to address cyberbullying.

We'll pause right there to briefly address McInnis, Nova Scotia and cyberbullying. McInnis is tossing out this leading question because his home province recently passed a truly terrible anti-cyberbullying law in response to a student's death -- a law that leaves it up to accusers and judges (the accused are not invited) to decide whether any sort of action or communication rises to the extremely low bar of being "harmful" to the accuser's "emotional well-being." If said communications are deemed to be "bullying" (again, without input from the accused), police can seize computers and other electronics, along with user data from the accused's ISPs and then shut off internet access altogether.

Now that we know why McInnis would like to see cyberbullying addressed, we can return to the statement he received in response from Special Inspector Scott Naylor of the OPP, which ignores the Senator's lob pass and pursues its own agenda.

If the bag was open and I could do anything, the biggest problem that I see in the world of child sexual exploitation is anonymity on the Internet. When we get our driver’s licence we’re required to get our picture taken for identification. When you get a mortgage you have to sign and provide identification. When you sign up for the Internet, there is absolutely no requirement for any kind of non-anonymity qualifier. There are a lot of people who are hiding behind the Internet to do all kinds of crime, including cybercrime, fraud, sexual exploitation and things along those lines.

Because some people do bad things (and maybe get away with it), everyone should have to apply for a license to use the internet. Sounds very Russian (and, to be honest, even slightly American) -- something no government official in any part of the "free world" should even appear to be considering.

Naylor obviously realizes his idea will be unpopular, hence the "child sexual exploitation" lead-in. That makes his assertion binary. Either you're for an internet driver's license or you're for child molestation: which is it? This is a common law enforcement affliction -- seeing anything that makes the job slightly more difficult as a barrier to be eliminated. And, as always, technological advancements are portrayed as being solely advantageous to criminals.

The Internet is moving so quickly that law enforcement cannot keep up. If there were one thing that I would ask for discussion on is that there has to be some mechanism of accountability for you to sign on to an Internet account that makes it like a digital fingerprint that identifies it to you sitting behind the computer or something at that time. There are mechanisms to do it, but the Internet is so big and so vast at this point, and it’s worldwide, I’m not sure how that could happen, but that would certainly assist everybody. In that way I can make a digital qualification that that’s the person that I’m talking to. If I had one choice, that’s what I would ask for.

Hey, a man can dream. And then he should be asked to stop talking before he embarrasses himself further. Law enforcement agencies love busting criminals, but seem to resent everything else about the job, like performing investigations, acquiring warrants, etc. Naylor wants a nice, tidy database of internet users he can access whenever he feels he needs to. Senator McInnis, who should know better than to touch a politically-toxic idea like this, not only approved this comment for inclusion but stated that he "absolutely agreed" with Naylor's Orwellian wish.

But McInnis and Naylor have no idea what they're asking for/agreeing with, at least not in terms of the Canadian court's position on online anonymity.

Leaving aside the deeply troubling inference of requiring licences to the use the Internet in the same manner as obtaining a driver’s licence, the police desire to stop online anonymity suggests that the OPP has not read the Supreme Court of Canada Spencer decision very carefully. If it had, it would know that not only does the court endorse a reasonable expectation of privacy in subscriber information, but it emphasizes the importance of online anonymity in doing so.

Naylor and McInnis have just sacrificed their credibility for one of the shoddiest and overused of rhetorical devices: child molestation. Much like terrorism, the threat of pedophilia is summoned as often as is needed to suppress rational arguments and ensure the desired outcome is obtained. These two threats are routinely abused to route around citizens' protections and rights. Whatever powers are granted are then deployed to handle routine criminal activity, the sort of thing that fails to move legislators or create memorable soundbites. "Child sexual exploitation" has become synonymous with mission creep and rights erosion, but those in the position to make legislative changes are rarely interested in appearing to be "soft" on sex offenders, and pitch in happily to cart away citizens' rights and pave the way for frictionless law enforcement and mission creep.

Filed Under: anonymity, driver's license, internet, internet license, ontario, police, privacy, scott naylor, tom mcinnis

Iran's Latest Move To Stifle Dissent: Requiring ID Cards To Go Online

from the dangerous-ideas dept

For a while, Techdirt has been tracking Iran's continuing efforts to throttle its citizens' access to troublesome materials online. These have included blocking all audio and video files, and even shutting down Gmail, albeit temporarily. But stopping people accessing sites in this way is not the only approach. Here's another, from a report by Der Spiegel (original in German):

Iran's government is introducing a biometric ID card that will function at the same time as an access card to the Web. Without registration via "smart card" the Internet will be blocked for citizens -- an insidious strategy for monitoring the opposition on the Internet.

All Iranians over the age of 14 will be required to have one of these new ID cards, which will store a digitised fingerprint and other personal information in an encrypted form. Once these cards are ubiquitous in the offline world, it's only a short step to require them to be used everywhere in the online world too, which would effectively abolish all anonymity and privacy there.

Iran's latest move is a useful reminder that wherever they are used, ID cards or their equivalent can become powerful enabling tools for perfect online surveillance. Other oppressive regimes will doubtless be watching the Iran experience closely.

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Filed Under: free speech, id cards, internet license, iran