Privacy Legislation

1. I’ve received a number of additional emails asking me to cosponsor the bills referenced above and also to cosponsor one further bill, identified below, which I will also cosponsor:

   THE DRONE PRIVACY ACT: regulating the use of unmanned aerial vehicles

   Sen. Hedlund & Rep. Garry – SD 1679; HD 2460

   The word “drone” conjures images of conflicts across the globe, but remote controlled aerial technology is increasingly of interest to local law enforcement too. While the FAA will regulate drones’ use of airspace, it is up to state lawmakers to ensure that this emerging technology is used responsibly in Massachusetts–without weapons, of course, and not for warrantless surveillance of residents.

2. Will, thanks for standing up on those important issues.

3. In the wake of the recent revelations about the activites of the NSA, concerns about privacy have been greatly hightened and I have received a number of emails in the form below.

   I agree that the legislature needs to take a close look at these issues and move forward to develop a package based on the bills discussed in this original topic above and on other bills that have more recently been brought to my attention related to administrative subpoenas — Senate 708 and House 1648.

   I was shocked and angered to learn last week that our federal government
   has been tracking the communications of every American — without
   suspicion, without warrants, and in secret.

   Under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the NSA has been tracking every call
   of every Verizon Business Network Services customer — to whom they spoke,
   from where, and for how long — for seven years. In all likelihood, given
   the sweeping nature of the surveillance, Verizon is far from the only
   network subject to wholesale warrantless monitoring. What’s more, the
   government has tapped into the servers at Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Apple,
   Microsoft and other giant tech firms to suck up our emails and other
   private data in real time.

   Whatever the feds are doing, we can do better in Massachusetts. We can —
   and must — take action to prevent similar abuses by local law enforcement
   in our state.

   Our communications records are records of our entire lives — even without
   the so-called “contents” of our emails and phone calls. Just the basic
   facts about who we’re in touch with, when, and from where, reveal enormous
   amounts about our relationships, our interests, our actions, and our
   movements.

   Alarmingly, state law is ripe for abuse just like the Patriot Act. It
   doesn’t require probable cause search warrants for law enforcement to
   monitor phone and internet records from companies like Verizon, Google, or
   Facebook. And it allows prosecutors to get such records with a simple
   demand letter — no judicial oversight whatsoever. Surveillance by local
   law enforcement is particularly invasive, as these are police departments
   and prosecutors whose actions directly touch our lives.

   I urge you to make changes to bring long-standing privacy principles and
   practices governing search warrants into the 21st century. We must update
   our laws to keep pace with our technology.

   PLEASE PASS THESE BILLS:

   THE ELECTRONIC PRIVACY ACT – S.796 (Spilka); H.1684 (Walz): This bill
   would require police to get a warrant to access our personal electronic
   information — details of our phone use, contacts, location, and email and
   other communication — from the telecommunications companies we pay to
   provide our phone and internet services.

   It shouldn’t matter whether we store our “papers and effects” in a desk
   drawer or online. To get at them, police should have to show probable
   cause that they will yield evidence of a crime.

   LEGISLATION TO REIN IN “ADMINISTRATIVE SUBPOENAS”: In 2008, Massachusetts
   gave far-reaching new powers to prosecutors to obtain individuals’ cell
   phone and internet records by issuing demand letters called
   “administrative subpoenas.” Such letters are now issued secretly,
   extensively, and without any judicial oversight or accountability. No
   judge evaluates or approves them and they commonly impose gag requests on
   the companies they are directed to.

   – AN ACT RELATIVE TO LAW-ENFORCEMENT ACCESS TO COMMUNICATIONS RECORDS,
   S.708 (Creem) would restrict use of the administrative subpoena law to
   child sex abuse investigations, limit the type of subscriber information
   ISPs could turn over, and establish basic accountability mechanisms.

   – AN ACT TO PROTECT PRIVACY, H.1648 (Swan) would repeal the administrative
   subpoena statute.

   ***

   In the wake of the revelations of massive federal surveillance, we need to
   get our own house in order here in Massachusetts. We need to update state
   laws to respect important constitutional privacy principles and our rights
   to be free of unwarranted government surveillance.

   Please make this a priority for the current legislative session.
   Fundamental freedoms cannot wait.

4. It is good to hear about your bill to protect job seekers’ social security and driver’s license numbers. While employers certainly need to research information relevant to a potential employee’s fit for a position, this has to be balanced with the right to privacy and the potential for identity theft whenever such information is stored in a database. Many times job seekers are told by recruiters that they must supply a social security or driver’s license number before they can even be considered. It is often difficult or impossible to know if the recruiter is legitimate or if the call or email is part of a scam. Employers’ needs can still be met if background checks are put off until later in the process, after a written offer (contingent on the results of the check) has been made.

   Having suitable legislation in place will make it easier for people to say no to such upfront requests. There will still be substantial pressure to go along with recruiter requests for identification information, no matter the legality. I hope your bill includes suitable provision to deter such behavior, whether the recruiter is a direct employee of the hiring company or a third party.

5. I was a bit dismay by Will answer to Jim Braude regarding the NSA surveillance program: http://www.necn.com/07/08/13/Broadside-Will-Brownsberger-for-Mass-5th/landing_broadside.html?blockID=845939&feedID=11122

   But I realized I signed the letter he mentioned and did not really followed up putting more meat behind the concerns – so a few recent and short point of view bringing some perspectives:

   Going beyond the simplistic “I have nothing to hide:” http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/if-prism-is-good-policy-why-stop-with-terrorism/277531/

   Thoughts about the il/legal character of the NSA PRISM program: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/opinion/the-criminal-nsa.html?ref=opinion&_r=1&

   But mainly about a little discussed aspect of having such a repository of information with an unclear access control at a time when no big company nor government agency is immune to hacking and illegal access every month passing. Laurence Lessig in the first half (
   ~30 mn) of his interview with Bill Moyers (http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-big-brother%E2%80%99s-prying-eyes/) coined the candy jar aspect and the reality of a surveillance mainly outsourced to private companies and contractors.

   I can picture investigators making available to you confidential information of your opponent in a law suite, your prospective job inquiry available to your current employer … as easily as you can check the price your new neighbour paid its property.

   And also the dream for any foreign country with mean to plunge in this candy jar. I simply can not trust a digital repository designed for remote access to be only reachable by those intended… The proposition itself goes against all the hacking history.

6. Will, thank you for your support for the ALPR bill (S1648)

   I have sent the following letter on this topic to the co-chairs of the Joint Committee on Transportation:

   I am writing in support of S1648, An Act to regulate the use of automatic license plate reader systems. I am a long-time Massachusetts resident, a professional engineer and scientist, and a citizen with a keen interest in issues that combine technical and social concerns.

   Relatively inexpensive automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) commonly available to law enforcement agencies can capture and record all license plates that come into view, either of a fixed camera or a camera mounted in a patrol car, along with timestamps identifying when and where a plate was scanned. Operators and owners of most vehicles about which information is obtained in this way will have violated no laws.

   ALPR records (“captured plate data” in the words of the Act) are typically entered into local databases (e.g. a database maintained by a municipality), and from there find their way into regional and national databases. In most cases, local agencies and governments lose practical control of the use and retention of ALPR records once their records are merged into larger databases. Therefore it seems reasonable that Massachusetts should set limits on the flow of ALPR records “upstream” from local to regional or national databases. It is not entirely clear to me that the current proposed text prevents all such transfers. I suggest that the wording of Section 2 (e) be expanded as follows:

   (e) Entities authorized to use ALPR systems under subsection (b) shall not sell, trade, exchange, or transfer captured plate data for any purpose.

   Likewise, if the records of local ALPR databases are openly accessible to external inquiries, it may be difficult for local governments to set meaningful limits on the purposes and legal grounds for external searches of their own databases. It would be wise for Massachusetts to ensure that limits and constraints they establish on the use of records in ALPR databases apply to external as well as local agencies and entities. I am pleased to see that the proposed Act establishes such limits.

7. Rich, thanks your for speaking out on this and for your work on the issue. Hopefully we can make some progress on this. I’m as troubled by the private accumulation of ALPR data, which the Globe recently reported on, than I am by the police accumulation of this data.

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