Yahoo! and Verizon: How Much Do the Feds Pay Us to Help Them Spy On You? You Don’t Wanna Know!

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Yahoo! and Verizon: How Much Do the Feds Pay Us to Help Them Spy On You? You Don’t Wanna Know!

Or, rather, they don’t want you to know. From
Wired.com:

Want to know how much phone companies and internet service
providers charge to funnel your private communications or
records to U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies?

That’s the question muckraker and Indiana University graduate
student Christopher Soghoian asked all agencies within the
Department of Justice, under a Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request filed a few months ago. But before the agencies
could provide the data, Verizon and Yahoo intervened and filed
an objection on grounds that, among other things, they would be
ridiculed and publicly shamed were their surveillance price
sheets made public.

Yahoo writes in its
12-page objection letter (.pdf), that if its pricing
information were disclosed to Soghoian, he would use it “to
’shame’ Yahoo! and other companies — and to ’shock’ their
customers.”

“Therefore, release of Yahoo!’s information is reasonably
likely to lead to impairment of its reputation for protection
of user privacy and security, which is a competitive
disadvantage for technology companies,” the company writes.

So, knowing how little you protect user privacy and security
might impair your reputation for protecting user privacy and
security, Yahoo!? Well, I certainly can’t argue with that.

Verizon took a different stance. It
objected to the release (.pdf) of its Law Enforcement Legal
Compliance Guide because it might “confuse” customers and lead
them to think that records and surveillance capabilities
available only to law enforcement would be available to them as
well — resulting in a flood of customer calls to the company
asking for trap and trace orders.

“Customers may see a listing of records, information or
assistance that is available only to law enforcement,” Verizon
writes in its letter, “but call in to Verizon and seek those
same services. Such calls would stretch limited resources,
especially those that are reserved only for law enforcement
emergencies.”

Other customers, upon seeing the types of surveillance law
enforcement can do, might “become unnecessarily afraid that
their lines have been tapped or call Verizon to ask if their
lines are tapped (a question we cannot answer).”

I say to Mr. Soghoian: Shock and shame, baby. Shock and shame!

…

Daniel J. SmithSent Via Mobile Phone

Privacy Is Far

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Privacy Is Far

The British government has decided to go ahead with its plans under what it calls the Intercept Modernisation Programme to force every telecommunication company and Internet service provider to keep a record of all its customers’ personal communications, showing whom they have contacted and when and where, as well as the Web sites they have visited. … The information … will be accessible to 653 public bodies, ”including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

”They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority,” The Telegraph says.

The only bit of good news, if you can call it that, is that the information won’t be held in a central database … and the full rollout will be delayed until after the next election. If the Tories or Liberal Democrats win, they say that the intercept program will be changed in scope and function. However, as happened in the United States after the last election, once politicians are in power, promises about privacy and spying on citizens seem to become less important.

More here. Two decades ago when wonks discussed the coming brave new web/internet world, privacy was an huge concern. In contrast, today when people choose what to reveal on the web, privacy seems a minor concern. Together, these suggest that privacy is far – we care about privacy as a high noble social concern, but not as a personal practical matter. (At least not until someone close in our social world starts to see our private info.)

But if so, why do politicians prefer to schedule to invade your privacy in the future, instead of now? Won’t that make us all the more concerned about it?

My guess: a broad national policy today is near in time, but far in social scope, so still invokes a substantially far view. So politicians are still held to ideals on it. But the far view makes us idealize our future politicians more than today’s; we think our side is more likely to win, and future politicians will act more ideally. So we don’t expect future politicians to let such privacy invasions go forward. And since all far events tend to seem less likely, there is less to worry about. When it actually happens later, they can say move along, there’s no news here, this was scheduled long ago.

Many said Bush’s privacy invasions revealed his evilness, but few care Obama has no plans to reverse those invasions. Even if UK and US governments don’t misuse this info, their policies will give …

Daniel J. SmithSent Via Mobile Phone