SQUIRREL-KILLERS 2015
FIRST NEGATIVE BRIEFS
Dr. John F. Schunk, Editor
“Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially curtail its domestic surveillance.”
N101. AIRPORT SCREENING
N102. BIOMETRICS
N103. CELL PHONE SEARCHES
N104. COUNTERSURVEILLANCE
N105. CYBERSECURITY: Threat Exaggerated
N106. CYBERSECURITY: NSA Actions Justified
N107. DATA MINING
N108. DNA DATABASES
N109. DRONES: Threat Exaggerated
N110. DRONES: Don’t Violate Privacy
N111. DRONES: Being Regulated
N112. E.C.P.A.
N113. ENCRYPTION
N114. EQUILIBRIUM ADJUSTMENT THEORY
N115. F.B.I.
N116. F.I.S.A.
N117. FOREIGN SURVEILLANCE
N118. GPS: Threat Exaggerated
N119. GPS: Being Regulated
N120. HEALTHCARE DATA
N121. HOME SEARCHES
N122. INFORMANTS
N123. LICENSE PLATE RECOGNITION
N124. LONE WOLF AMENDMENT
N125. MILITARY SURVEILLANCE
N126. MOSAIC THEORY
N127. MUSLIM SURVEILLANCE
N128. N.S.A.: No Abuse
N129. N.S.A.: Being Regulated
N130. N.S.L.’s
N131. PATRIOT ACT SECTION 215
N132. PHONE METADATA
N133. POST OFFICE SURVEILLANCE
N134. PRIVACY ENHANCING TECHNOLOGIES
N135. REASONABLE EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY
N136. RIGHT TO PRIVACY: Flawed
N137. SPECIAL NEEDS EXCEPTIONS
N138. STATES: Curtailing Surveillance
N139. STINGRAYS
N140. SURVEILLANCE: Threat Exaggerated
N141. SURVEILLANCE: Benefits
N142. USA FREEDOM ACT: Adopted
N143.VIDEO SURVEILLANCE
N144. WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION
N145. WIRETAPPING
S-K PUBLICATIONS
PO Box 8173
Wichita KS 67208-0173
PH 316-685-3201
FAX 316-260-4976
SK/N101. AIRPORT SCREENING
1. PASSENGERS ACCEPT BODY SCANNERS
SK/N101.01) Thomas W. Dillon & Daphyne S. Thomas, JOURNAL OF TRANSPORTATION SECURITY, June 2015, p. 1, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. This paper examines the legal privacy issues and the attitudes toward body scanning. Through the use of a survey, attitudes of air travelers were evaluated in terms of their responses to issues of body scanning acceptability, saving body scanned images, and protecting modesty of the traveler when scanning body images. Findings show that most of the U.S. population is accepting of full-body scanning when modesty measures are utilized.
SK/N101.02) Christopher Elliott, USA TODAY, July 28, 2014, p. 5B, LexisNexis Academic. Passengers also reacted with a collective shrug when, in early July, the Department of Homeland Security announced new "enhanced security measures" at certain overseas airports with direct flights to the United States. In case you missed it, the new precautions ask passengers to power up their electronic devices. If they couldn't, the powerless gadgets would not be permitted on the aircraft. The TSA doesn't administer these screenings, but it has some oversight. Media reports of widespread complaints were impossible to verify. In fact, I've received exactly zero grievances about the TSA's war on dead cellphones.
SK/N101.03) Christopher Elliott, USA TODAY, July 28, 2014, p. 5B, LexisNexis Academic. More than 12 years after the TSA's creation, it seems our anger and outrage have run dry. Travelers have come to accept anything the agency throws at us, no matter how nonsensical and despite its civil-rights implications.
2. INVASIVE BODY SCANNERS HAVE BEEN REPLACED
SK/N101.04) Bart Jansen, USA TODAY, January 21, 2013, p. 3A, LexisNexis Academic. The Transportation Security Administration said Friday that it's dropping the full-body scanning machines that produced almost nude images of people at checkpoints and outraged many travelers. The reason: The maker of the machines, Rapiscan Systems, cannot produce software to eliminate the almost nude images that TSA personnel view and turn them into stick-like figures.
SK/N101.05) Ashley Halsey III, THE WASHINGTON POST, January 19, 2013, p. A1, LexisNexis Academic. The Transportation Security Administration will remove 174 full-body scanners from airport security checkpoints, ending a $40 million contract for the machines, which caused an uproar because they revealed spectral naked forms of passengers.
3. SCANNERS DO NOT EMIT UNSAFE LEVELS OF RADIATION
SK/N101.06) Alison Young & Christopher Schnaars, USA TODAY, May 3, 2013, p. 3A, LexisNexis Academic. Controversial full-body X-ray scanners at U.S. airports underwent more than 700 inspections last year, with all tests showing radiation levels below standards used by their manufacturer and the Transportation Security Administration, according to a USA TODAY review of the recently released reports.
SK/N101.07) Alison Young & Christopher Schnaars, USA TODAY, May 3, 2013, p. 3A, LexisNexis Academic. Regardless, the TSA is in the final phases of removing the last of Rapiscan's backscatter scanners from airport checkpoints by June. Full-body scanners using a different technology that does not involve ionizing radiation, called millimeter wave, will remain in use to screen passengers.
SK/N101.08) Alison Young & Christopher Schnaars, USA TODAY, May 3, 2013, p. 3A, LexisNexis Academic. The TSA has said it was privacy concerns - not radiation - that resulted in the agency canceling its contract with Rapiscan in January. Rapiscan was unable to meet TSA's deadline to develop software to convert the nude-like images on its machines into stick-like figures.
SK/N101.09) Bart Jansen, USA TODAY, January 21, 2013, p. 3A, LexisNexis Academic. The TSA has 174 Rapiscan machines, which will be removed from airports by June. The agency earlier had removed 76 of the machines from airports -- including New York's LaGuardia and JFK, Chicago O'Hare, Los Angeles, Boston, Charlotte and Orlando. It was privacy concerns -- not radiation -- that prompted the TSA to make the move.
SK/N101.10) Dr. Mehmet Oz & Dr. Michael Roizen, DENVER POST, July 8, 2014, p. 10B, LexisNexis Academic. It would take more than 250 trips through a radiation emitting airport scanner to come close to one fourth of the radiation from a chest X ray.
4. TSA IS INCREASING USE OF RISK-BASED SCREENING
SK/N101.11) Patrick Tucker, NATIONALJOURNAL.COM, June 3, 2015, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. "Ultimately, we're dealing with people's intent more than items. Which concerns you more: a person who has no bad intent but who has an item on them like a knife or a gun, or someone who has bad intent but doesn't have such an item?" he [Sheldon H. Jacobson, mathematics professor, U. of Illinois] said. "Most people are comfortable with the former rather than the latter. A person with bad intent will find a way to cause damage. A person without bad intent who happens to have an item on them is not the issue." Risk-based systems can help solve that problem, but only when used correctly.
SK/N101.12) Dustin Volz, NATIONALJOURNAL.COM, March 27, 2015, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Next time you go through airport security, do your best to avoid yawning, whistling, or complaining too much: Any of those behaviors could make you look like a terrorist in the eyes of a Transportation Security Administration screening agent, according to newly disclosed government documents. A secret 92-point checklist obtained and published Friday by The Intercept, reveals for the first time what kind of passenger behavior can merit a red flag for TSA agents responsible for pulling possible terrorists and criminals out of airport security lines.
SK/N101.13) Patrick Tucker, NATIONALJOURNAL.COM, June 3, 2015, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Jacobson [mathematics professor, U. of Illinois] says that the "worst thing" that could happen for airport security at this point is to reverse the progress made in this so-called risk-based screening, and instead subject higher numbers of people to screening that doesn't reflect the likely threat they pose. Today's airport security overweights the risk of items and underweights the risk of dangerous people, he said, simply because the system still doesn't differentiate passengers who may pose a threat from those who surely do not.
5. DISCRIMINATORY PROFILING IS PROHIBITED
SK/N101.14) Dustin Volz, NATIONALJOURNAL.COM, March 27, 2015, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Despite the scathing conclusions, however, the SPOT [Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques] program has continued, and its screening checklist has been kept largely secret until now. Its backers say the program is an essential layer of TSA's multipronged airport security approach and expressly forbids any kind of discriminatory profiling. "Behavior-analysis techniques have been successfully employed by law enforcement and security personnel both in the U.S. and internationally," the spokesman said. "No single behavior alone will cause a traveler to be referred to additional screening or will result in a call to a law enforcement officer."
6. PRE-CHECK SYSTEM IS A HUGE SUCCESS
SK/N101.15) Patrick Tucker, NATIONALJOURNAL.COM, June 3, 2015, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The most famous and widely used is TSA's PreCheck, wich launched in December 2013. It allows U.S. citizens and permanent residents who submit to a somewhat strict background check (including an in-person meeting and fingerprint scan) to receive expedited screening at airports for five years. Jacobson [mathematics professor, U. of Illinois] says the best thing policymakers could do to airport improve security is get a lot more people into PreCheck. "The irony is that if we do less overall screening by putting the right people in PreCheck and the people we don't know anything about not in PreCheck, the total amount of screening done will be less, the amount of technology we use will be less, and the total security of the system will be greater. It's completely counterintuitive."
SK/N101.16) Patrick Tucker, NATIONALJOURNAL.COM, June 3, 2015, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Broadly speaking, Jacobson [mathematics professor, U. of Illinois] and other aviation security experts consider PreCheck a huge success. It's given birth to more interesting programs (not yet fully implemented) such as the Dynamic Aviation Risk Management Systems program, which uses incoming information to allow the TSA to quickly move screeners or resources where they are needed, and to develop changing threat profiles of different people or places.
SK/N101.17) Ted Jackovics, THE TAMPA TRIBUNE, August 23, 2013, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Pistole's [administrator, TSA] initiative, to allow more U.S. citizens to participate in TSA's PreCheck expedited screening process, is part of his vision to tailor security to a risk-based assessment of passengers, replacing TSA's strategy to consider all passengers the same potential threat. New concepts range from specially trained officers looking for suspicious behavior to background checks for prospective participants in the PreCheck program. Pistole said last month he will greatly expand PreCheck, enabling TSA to better focus its resources on travelers it knows the least about.
7. SECURITY IMPROVEMENTS ARE CONTINUALLY MADE
SK/N101.18) Bart Jansen, USA TODAY, April 24, 2014, p. 4A, LexisNexis Academic. Chris Bidwell, vice president for security at Airports Council International-North America, said airports routinely tweak their operations as they learn of threats. "Airports routinely evaluate their security measures not only as a result of incidents, but during the normal course of business because they want to ensure they have effective security in place," Bidwell said.
SK/N101.19) PROGRESSIVE MEDIA, July 1, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. The US is planning to increase airport security measures over concerns that Al-Qaeda terrorists are developing explosives that can escape detection by the current screening systems. According to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), there has been some intelligence that terrorists are developing bombs made from non-metallic materials, which may escape screening at airports. These explosives have been designed specifically to target commercial flights.
SK/N101.20) PROGRESSIVE MEDIA, July 1, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. The new generation bombs may potentially allow suicide bombers to go past the screening systems and smuggle the explosives onto aircraft. CNN reported that officials have said although there is no imminent threat or plot; an additional vulnerability has been identified, which the Department of Homeland Security is working to address.
SK/N101.21) Howard LaFranchi, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, July 3, 2014, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. Increased security measures for some European and Middle Eastern airports with direct flights to the United States, ordered by the US Wednesday, reflect heightened concerns about the talents of one particular terrorist - and the contacts he may have made with a particular subset of jihadist terrorists.
SK/N101.22) NATIONALJOURNAL.COM, July 3, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. U.S. officials are worried that al-Qaida has developed a new kind of bomb that can go undetected by airport security, the Los Angeles Times reports. Intelligence agencies recently found out that al-Qaida's Yemeni affiliate, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, has developed a method for smuggling explosives through airport metal detectors, body scanners and physical pat-downs, two anonymous U.S. counterterrorism officials told the newspaper in a Wednesday article. The concern has prompted Homeland Security Department head Jeh Johnson to order the implementation of "enhanced security measures" in the days ahead for U.S.-bound flights departing from Europe and the Middle East.
SK/N101.23) Diane Barnes, NATIONALJOURNAL.COM, April 15, 2014, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Scientists may have discovered how they can reprogram X-ray scanners to more effectively spot bomb-usable nuclear materials in airline bags. Common X-ray systems might become more capable of identifying tiny amounts of uranium and plutonium with help from a new computer algorithm written in the United States, the American Institute of Physics announced on Tuesday. The code is based on a close examination of how radiation passes through various substances and how the resultant X-ray image should look, according to a development team at University of Texas-Austin and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state.
8. ALLEGED TERRORIST TIES OF TSA SCREENERS ARE BOGUS
SK/N101.24) PROGRESSIVE MEDIA, June 17, 2015, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. An internal review by the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has revealed that the 73 aviation workers with alleged terror links did not pose any threat to the country's transportation security.
SK/N101.25) PROGRESSIVE MEDIA, June 17, 2015, pNA, LexisNexis Academic. TSA Office of Intelligence and Analysis deputy assistant administrator Stacey Fitzmaurice was quoted by USA Today as saying that the agency re-checked the suspected individuals, but failed to find any threat. "To be clear, these individuals are not considered to be known or suspected terrorists. The individuals do not pose a threat to transportation security."
SK/N101.26) Ashley Halsey III, THE WASHINGTON POST, June 10, 2015, p. A17, LexisNexis Academic. The [inspector general] report said, however, that the TSA was "generally effective in identifying credential holders with links to terrorism." It said the agency had revoked 58 airport badges since 2003 because of security concerns.
9. TSA TRAINING IS BEING UPGRADED
SK/N101.27) Editorial, THE NEW YORK TIMES, June 3, 2015, p. A28, LexisNexis Academic. Security experts say planes remain a high-priority target for many terrorists. Mr. Johnson [secretary of homeland security] stressed that travelers are protected by multiple layers of detection and protection, “many of which are not visible to the traveling public.” The corrective steps he is taking, some of which are already under way, make good sense. He directed the T.S.A. to brief all airports on the findings and fix the vulnerabilities revealed by the covert test. This would involve retraining airport security officers, re-evaluating all security equipment and conducting more covert tests to determine how well the new measures work.
SK/N101.28) Brian Bennett, LOS ANGELES TIMES, June 3, 2015, p. A6, LexisNexis Academic. In the meantime, Johnson [Homeland Security Secretary], who was briefed on the Red Team's findings two weeks ago, ordered the TSA to revise its standard procedures for screening and initiated a plan to retrain every screener and supervisor, in phases, across the country. He also ordered officials to retest and reevaluate screening equipment. Johnson also vowed to meet with executives of the companies that sell the screening equipment to prod them to fix the deficiencies found by the Red Team.
SK/N101.29) Ashley Halsey III, THE WASHINGTON POST, June 4, 2015, p. A17, LexisNexis Academic. The upside of findings that cost acting TSA administrator Melvin Carraway his job on Monday will come when the inspector general's report is complete and can be used to train front-line TSA airport officers, Pistole [former TSA head] said. "Just seeing some of the concealment techniques that the IG [inspector general] used, that will really be helpful for the security officers who will think, 'Oh, okay, so that's how they did it,' " he said.
SK/N101.30) Patrick Tucker, NATIONALJOURNAL.COM, June 3, 2015, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. One tester even got a fake bomb past the screeners after the device set off a metal detector. In response, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson pulled acting TSA chief Melvin Carraway off the job, and announced more random covert testing, more training for airport security personnel, and more random equipment checks.
SK/N102. BIOMETRICS
1. BIOMETRICS ARE NOT INVASIVE
SK/N102.01) David H. Kaye [Professor of Law, Penn State U.], JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINOLOGY, Summer 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. 569. Justice William Brennan stated some of the case for the biometric exception when he wrote for the Court in Davis v. Mississippi that one biometric modality, fingerprinting, "involves none of the probing into an individual's private life and thoughts that marks an interrogation or search... . Furthermore, fingerprinting is an inherently more reliable and effective crime-solving tool than eyewitness identifications or confessions ... ." Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, in an address delivered on the heels of the King decision, expressed his agreement with the result in King, in part on the theory that inasmuch as "taking a DNA sample reveals no information about the private, non-criminal conduct of the object of the search, ... taking a DNA sample - or a fingerprint sample - involves a far lesser intrusion on an ordinary person's privacy than a search that allows an officer to rummage through private papers."
SK/N102.02) David H. Kaye [Professor of Law, Penn State U.], JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINOLOGY, Summer 2014, LexisNexis Academic, p. Fingerprints, photographs, and DNA profiles each sometimes can be used to determine where someone was at some point in the past, and all these biometric traits possess some inherited features. Libertarians may instinctively resent and oppose the desire of governments to amass all the information they can, and policymakers of all persuasions should worry about the emergence of new surveillance and information systems. But singly or in combination, the three biometrics are not the equivalent of Bentham's panopticon - a building in which the locations and movements of everyone and everything are instantly and always visible - or of Orwell's 1984 - a world with two-way telescreens and hidden microphones in every home. In using biometrics for some forms of "identification," as defined in King, DNA (and other databases) of appropriate scope, cost, and efficacy can contribute to efforts to enforce criminal law without trampling legitimate interests in personal privacy.