[ACLU-NM] Local and National Privacy Experts Take On Data-Privacy in New Mexico at Upcoming ACLU-NM Conference in Santa Fe

[Kimberly Lavender]

~ ACLU-NM NEWS RELEASE ~



For Immediate Release

Monday, August 9, 2004



Contact:        Peter Simonson, ACLU-NM Executive Director, 620-0775





Emerging “Surveillance-Industrial Complex” is Turbo-Charging Government
Monitoring, ACLU Warns in New Report
Local and National Privacy Experts Take On Data-Privacy in New Mexico at
Upcoming ACLU-NM Conference in Santa Fe



NEW YORK & Albuquerque – The government is rapidly increasing its ability to
monitor average Americans by tapping into the growing amount of consumer
data being collected by the private sector, according to a major report
released today by the American Civil Liberties Union.



“The U.S. security establishment is reaching its tentacles deeper and deeper
into our private lives by forcing the private sector to inform on the
activities of individuals,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of
the ACLU.  “The government has always recruited informers to help convict
criminals, but today that recruitment is being computerized, automated, and
used against innocent individuals on a massive scale that is unprecedented
in the history of our nation.”



Today’s release of the 38-page report, entitled “The Surveillance-Industrial
Complex: How the American Government is Conscripting Businesses and
Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society,” marks the launch
of the ACLU’s Surveillance Campaign, which is designed to regain consumers’
personal privacy rights by mobilizing people to contact prominent
companies – such as drugstore chains, insurance companies and retailers – to
ask them to take a “no-spy pledge” to defend their customers’ privacy
against government intrusion.  A list of suggested companies for consumers
to contact is available online at www.aclu.org/privatize.



Complementing the release of the surveillance report, the New Mexico
affiliate of the ACLU will hold a day-long symposium on “Data-Mining,
Privacy, and Surveillance in New Mexico” on August 21st at the Sunrise
Springs Resort in Santa Fe.  The conference will feature six of the nation’s
foremost experts on federal data-mining initiatives, the USA PATRIOT Act,
and state legislative strategies to protect consumer information from
unauthorized use in criminal databases.



Privacy is at risk and it is up to the states to ensure strong privacy
measures.  Under federal law, consumers have very few rights to control the
sharing of their sensitive financial information by financial institutions.
The ACLU-NM Privacy conference will address the need to enact legislation to
provide consumers control over the sharing of their financial information.
The Surveillance report will be available to all conference participants.



“We are thrilled to bring such a prominent group of experts on this critical
civil liberties topic to New Mexico,” said Peter Simonson, Executive
Director for the ACLU of New Mexico.  “Although most New Mexicans still don’
t appreciate the extent and implications of data-mining in their everyday
lives, data-based surveillance is the foremost threat to the culture of
freedom in America.  Under Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Department of
Justice has ushered in an era of data-collection and profiling that will
receive increasing attention as Americans begin to feel the impact of
surveillance on their lives.”



The ACLU’s national surveillance report makes the case that, across a broad
variety of areas, businesses are acquiescing to being drafted into adjuncts
of the surveillance state.  Different dimensions of this “privatization of
surveillance” are examined in depth in four separate sections of the report:



  a.. Recruiting Individuals.  Documents how individuals are being recruited
to serve as “eyes and ears” for the authorities even after Congress rejected
the infamous TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) program that
would have recruited workers like cable repairmen to spy on their customers.
  b.. Recruiting Companies.  Examines how companies are pressured to
voluntarily provide consumer information to the government; the many ways
security agencies can force companies to turn over sensitive information
under federal laws such as the Patriot Act; how the government is forcing
companies to participate in watchlist programs and in systems for the
automatic scrutiny of individuals’ financial transactions.
  c.. Mass Data Use, Public and Private.  Focuses on the government’s use of
private data on a mass scale, either through data mining programs like the
MATRIX state information-sharing program, or the purchase of information
from private-sector data aggregators.
  d.. Pro-Surveillance Lobbying.  Looks at the flip side of the issue: how
some companies are pushing the government to adopt surveillance technologies
and programs based on private-sector data.


“Government security agencies all too often act on the false premise that
they can stop terrorism by tracking information about everyone, while at the
same time, private companies are increasingly collecting more information on
their customers,” said Jay Stanley, Communications Director of the ACLU’s
Technology and Liberty Program and the author of the report.  “Sometimes
willingly, sometimes not, the private sector is playing a key role in the
push toward a frightening new surveillance society.”



If we want to preserve the privacy Americans have always enjoyed, we need to
act now.





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Kimberly Lavender
Public Education Coordinator, ACLU-NM
PO Box 80915
Albuquerque, NM 87198
www.aclu-nm.org




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