Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Union called the AIT scan a “virtual strip-search” [92]. In July 2010, the Electronic
Privacy Information Center filed a lawsuit to suspend the deployment of AIT systems,
pending further review. EPIC called the program “unlawful, invasive, and ineffective,”
arguing that it violated the Privacy Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the
Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution [93].
In February 2011, the Transportation Security Administration announced that it
was about to begin testing new software on its advanced imaging technology machines
that would eliminate passenger-specific images. TSA Administrator John Pistole said
that the new system “auto-detects potential threat items and indicates their location on
a generic outline of a person” [94]. The tests were successful, and in January 2013 the
TSA announced that all body scanners producing passenger-specific images would be
removed from airport checkpoints by June 2013 [95].
It's only natural that people want government to leave them alone, but they also expect
government to keep them safe and secure through effective policing and a strong na-
tional defense. Frequently, the constitutional guarantees in the Bill of Rights come into
conflict with the desires of law enforcement agencies to gather information that can help
them apprehend criminals. Through legislation, administrative policies, and court deci-
sions, the three branches of American government have been engaged in the attempt to
find the right balance between competing concerns.
In this chapter we looked at the role that federal, state, and local governments have
played in protecting and eroding the information privacy of individual citizens. We orga-
nized our presentation using the taxonomy of privacy proposed by Daniel Solove, which
divides the field into four categories: information collection, information processing,
information dissemination, and invasion. We reviewed legislation and administrative
policies that protect the information privacy of individuals by restricting how orga-
nizations can collect, process, and disseminate information as well as limit the extent
to which they can intrude into people's daily lives. We also looked at ways in which
governments have promoted public safety and security by collecting, processing, and
disseminating personal information and intruding into people's lives.
We surveyed many governmental activities related to information collection. The
federal government maintains extensive databases containing a vast amount of informa-
tion about individual Americans, and from time to time information in these databases
has been misused. The government also collects information through overt and covert
surveillance.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, concerns about individual privacy
took a backseat to concerns about national security, and signficant changes occurred
in the government's activities related to information collection, information process-
ing, and invasion. The USA PATRIOT Act amended many laws and enhanced the abil-
ity of law enforcement agencies to gather information about suspected terrorists and
criminals. The National Security Agency acquired records of domestic phone calls from
telecommunications companies and performed data mining in an attempt to find calling
