Big Brother's Gaze Widens

FROM THE ARCHIVES (Daily Nebraskan columns)

Big Brother's Gaze Widens

Echoes of ‘1984’ Haunt the Net

Jeremy Patrick (jhaeman@hotmail.com)

August 28, 2000

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither."
--Benjamin Franklin

What's the scariest book you've ever read? When I think of a truly frightening tale, the one that instantly pops into my head is George Orwell's "1984."
It's often overused as an analogy these days, the idea of a "Big Brother" government controlling an individual's every step and thought. Indeed, controlling the very words a person is able to think strikes me as a fate worse than any other.
However, I've always prided myself on being able to separate fantasy from reality. Had anyone told me a year ago that a worldwide network of surveillance devices existed to sort through and read almost every single form of electronic communication, I would have told them to stop watching so much "X-Files" and get a life.
"That's impossible," I would have said. "Can you imagine the vast amounts of data that flows through these systems - literally billions of messages a day! No organization, even if they could collect these transmissions, could sort through them in any meaningful way." But my faith in the protection provided by the sheer inefficiency of government has been shaken. Big Brother, though not quite here, is well on his way under a different guise: Echelon and Carnivore.
You may have heard of the recently unveiled massive surveillance system called "Echelon." Created in the mid-1970s by the concerted effort of the United States, England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, Echelon literally captures a vast majority of all satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic transmissions worldwide, including telephone conversations, faxes and e-mails. It then uses a sophisticated filtering system to sort the messages by keyword and group them for human operatives to examine. The existence of Echelon, though officially denied by the United States, has been confirmed by Australia and New Zealand.
Ostensibly used for "national security" purposes only, the use of Echelon requires no court order or warrant. It selects messages indiscriminately, so long as the required keyword is contained within, and makes them available to government agents.
The only oversight of Echelon comes from national intelligence agencies, and they have resisted supervision. For example, the National Security Agency refused to share the standards used to monitor conversations with Congress until the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee launched hearings. France, Italy, and Denmark have also launched investigations.
Another e-surveillance system, Carnivore, was confirmed in the last few months. Operated by the FBI and Justice Department, Carnivore enables government computers to sort e-mail communications as they pass through Internet service providers and collect those that have a certain "To:" or "From:" address. Unlike conventional phone wiretaps, FBI agents have been using Carnivore without a court order to collect and read the contents of messages.
The use of Carnivore has also resulted in congressional hearings. Three weeks ago Attorney General Janet Reno announced that she would make the system available for an independent evaluation of its capabilities and legality.
The potential for misuse of these systems is endless. The government is telling us not to worry about our privacy being invaded because they promise not to violate it. "Trust us," they're saying. "Have we ever acted improperly before?" The FBI once kept extensive files on the likes of John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe and Martin Luther King, Jr. That should answer the question.
At least in those days the potential for abuse was somewhat limited by the legwork involved. Every phone wiretap required a human agent to listen to it, and every intercepted document had to be read by human eyes. Now, as our society increasingly communicates electronically, systems like Echelon and Carnivore offer the possibility of surveillance on a virtually unlimited number of people.
What can we do about it?
For now, not much.
A Web site operated jointly by three privacy-rights groups provides information about Echelon at www.echelongwatch.org. It may be eventually possible to weaken the effectiveness of systems like it if enough people place certain keywords (such as "bomb," "White House," "assassination" and "anthrax") randomly throughout their e-mails. The American Civil Liberties Union Web site, www.aclu.org, allows Internet surfers to send free faxes to Congress about Echelon and Carnivore.
It's clear that, one way or another, action needs to be taken. Big Brother is watching, and he won't leave until we make him.

(c) Daily Nebraskan Online (2000) (www.dailyneb.com)