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U.S. Study Finds Benefits, Risks Of Mass Data Collection

U.S. Study Finds Benefits, Risks Of Mass Data Collection

By Kathleen Hennessey and Robert Faturechi, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — A new White House report on mass collection of data concludes it is “saving lives” but calls for more privacy safeguards to secure personal information from being leaked, shared without permission or used to discriminate.

The report, issued Thursday, is the result of a three-month review led by White House adviser John Podesta and several administration officials. President Barack Obama called for the assessment of “big data” in January, amid pressure over revelations about U.S. spy agencies gathering data on phone records.

The administration’s review, however, did not focus on data collected for intelligence, but looked at how other government agencies, the private sector and educational institutions use the almost boundless information available about U.S. consumers.

The use of enormous amounts of data and the still-emerging field of analytics are described in the document as increasingly useful in unexpected places. Medicare and Medicaid use analytics to flag potential fraud, and data collected from health monitors can help neonatal units predict which newborns may be vulnerable to infection. The White House noted that Esri, a Redlands, Calif., technology company, creates maps that can track tornadoes and their potential impact.

The White House identified two major dangers arising with the growth of big data. The speed of technology makes it difficult for consumers to retain “meaningful control” of their information, and the way the data are analyzed presents the potential for discrimination.

In a blog post announcing the findings, Podesta wrote that the report tried to look for ways to “protect our privacy and other values in a world where data collection is increasingly ubiquitous and where analysis is conducted at speeds approaching real time.”

The group outlined six policy recommendations, including reviving the push for a consumer privacy bill of rights that would set basic standards enforced by the Federal Trade Commission. The Obama administration first endorsed the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights in 2012, but the effort has stalled in Congress. Also stalled is the administration’s push for its 2011 cybersecurity legislation, which the report endorsed.

The report included other steps that would not require cooperation from Congress. It urged government agencies to extend privacy protections afforded to citizens to non-U.S. citizens “when practicable.” It also argued that data collected on students should be used only for educational purposes.

An update to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is needed, the report said, to ensure online communication has the same legal protections as the old-fashioned kind, a proposal that won praise from privacy advocates who argue that the 1986 law is archaic.

“By recognizing that online and offline communications should be treated the same, the report lays the groundwork for keeping everyone’s emails, texts and photos private and secure,” said Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union. “Now, Congress and the administration need to make this vision a reality by enacting ECPA reform without any loopholes.”

When information is collected in bulk, then sliced and diced to identify demographic and other trends, the potential for discrimination is high, the report warned. The report called on federal agencies to hire more technical experts who can determine when data are being used to discriminate.

“We must prevent new modes of discrimination that some uses of big data may enable, particularly with regard to long-standing civil rights protections in housing, employment and credit,” the report said.

The notion that big data can lead to discrimination was among the report’s more controversial aspects. Paul Bond, a partner at Reed Smith specializing in privacy, warned against overblowing the dangers of big data and prematurely determining that negative consumer outcomes are the result of discriminatory practices.

He said that big data has actually been used to uncover bias in housing. “Before, you would have to send test couples,” he said. “Now, you can just look at the data.”

Those data, though, can be misleading, he warned, citing a spate of recent class-action lawsuits claiming brokers and lenders were assigning higher-cost mortgages in minority communities. Bond said that many of those cases floundered after more comprehensive data were presented, which showed that factors other than race were at play, such as differences in mortgage costs between rural and urban areas.

“The plaintiffs’ bar constantly confused correlation and causation,” he said. “The faster big-data technology develops, the more care will be required to establish the actual root cause of disparate consumer outcomes.”

AFP Photo

White House Report On Data Collection Calls For Privacy Protections

White House Report On Data Collection Calls For Privacy Protections

By Kathleen Hennessey, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — A new White House report on privacy and data collection says the mass collection of information is “saving lives” but calls for additional safeguards in how personal information is stored and collected.

The report, issued Thursday, is the result of a three-month review led by White House adviser John Podesta and administration officials. President Barack Obama called for the assessment of so-called “big data” amid pressure over revelations about U.S. spy agencies collecting data on phone records.

The review did not focus on collecting data for intelligence, however, opting instead to review policies in other government agencies, the private sector and education.

“As more data is collected, analyzed, and stored on both public and private systems, we must be vigilant in ensuring that balance is maintained between government and citizens, and revise our laws accordingly,” the report said.

The document praises the use of big data to assist in disaster recovery and in medicine, and describes the expansion of analytics as a potential economic boon to the United States.

But it also outlines six policy recommendations to the president, including reviving the push for a consumer privacy bill of rights that would set standards for how personal information is used.

The report also calls for the passage of a cybersecurity bill that would set a national standard for handling a data “breach.”

The report endorses the notion of extending privacy protections to non-U.S. citizens and argues that information collected on students in schools should be used only for educational purposes. It also called for amending the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to ensure online content has the same legal protections as other information.

The report also warned against discrimination that can result when data are mishandled and urged the federal government to guard against cases when information is used to categorize or sort citizens into groups.

“We must prevent new modes of discrimination that some uses of big data may enable, particularly with regard to longstanding civil rights protections in housing, employment and credit,” according to a synopsis of the report.

The White House said the Commerce Department would take the lead on crafting legislation and policy related to the issues.

©afp.com / Indranil Mukherjee

Coalition Wants U.S. To End Bulk Data Sweep

Coalition Wants U.S. To End Bulk Data Sweep

Washington (AFP) — More than 40 activist organizations and companies called Tuesday for an overhaul of U.S. government surveillance authority that goes beyond President Barack Obama’s proposal.

The coalition said Obama’s proposal to end bulk collection of telephone data by the National Security Agency is positive, but does not go far enough.

Any reforms should “prohibit bulk collection for all types of data, not just phone records,” the groups said in a letter to the White House and U.S. lawmakers.

“Legislation that focuses only on phone records may still allow for the bulk collection of, for example, Internet metadata, location information, financial records, library records, and numerous other records.”

The letter said the reform should require prior approval for each record request from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

“If there is concern that the FISA Court would move too slowly to authorize domestic surveillance beforehand, then the solution should be to provide the FISA Court with sufficient resources,” the letter said.

The organizations backed the U.S.A. Freedom Act introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy and Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, and rejected a more narrow bill introduced by a different group of lawmakers.

The letter was endorsed by the American Civil Liberties Union, American Library Association, Amnesty International U.S.A., Center for Democracy & Technology Center, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the social network Reddit, among others.

It came days after Obama put forward a long-awaited plan to end the U.S. government’s bulk collection of telephone records, aiming to defuse a controversy over surveillance on millions of Americans.

The overhaul represents the president’s proposals to reform procedures at the NSA, which was rocked by disclosures about its activities in documents leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

AFP Photo/Nicholas Kamm

NSA Chief’s Legacy Is Shaped By Big Data, For Better And Worse

NSA Chief’s Legacy Is Shaped By Big Data, For Better And Worse

By Ken Dilanian, Tribune Washington Bureau

FORT MEADE, Md. — In nearly nine years as head of the nation’s largest intelligence agency, Gen. Keith Alexander presided over a vast expansion of digital spying, acquiring information in a volume his predecessors would have found unimaginable.

In Iraq, for example, the National Security Agency went from intercepting only about half of enemy signals and taking hours to process them to being able to collect, sort and make available every Iraqi email, text message and phone-location signal in real time, said John “Chris” Inglis, who recently retired as the NSA’s top civilian.

The overhaul, which Alexander ordered shortly after taking leadership of the agency in August 2005, enabled U.S. ground commanders to find out when an insurgent leader had turned on his cellphone, where he was and whom he was calling.

“Absolutely invaluable,” retired Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former U.S. commander in Iraq, said in an interview as he described the NSA’s efforts, which led to the dismantling of networks devoted to burying roadside bombs.

Alexander “sped the place up,” Inglis said.

But something else seems likely to shape the legacy of the NSA’s longest-serving director, who retired Friday: something that Alexander failed to anticipate, did not prepare for and even now has trouble understanding.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, the world came to know many of the agency’s most carefully guarded secrets. 10 months after the disclosures began, Alexander remains disturbed, and somewhat baffled, by the intensity of the public reaction.

“I think our nation has drifted into the wrong place,” he said in an interview last week. “We need to recognize that those who are working to protect our nation are not the bad people.”

When Snowden’s disclosures began, Alexander and his deputies knew they were in for a storm. But they felt sure the American public would be comforted when they learned of the agency’s internal controls and the layers of oversight by Congress, the White House and a federal court.

“For the first week or so, we all had this idea that we had nothing to be ashamed of, and that everyone who looked at this in context would quickly agree with us,” Inglis said.

Instead, polls show, many Americans believe that the NSA is reading their emails and listening to their phone calls. A libertarian group put an advertisement in the Washington transit system calling Alexander, a 62-year-old career military officer, a liar. U.S. technology companies are crying betrayal.

The ease with which Snowden removed top-secret documents also embarrassed an agency that is supposed to be the first line of defense against cyberattacks.

In July, Alexander offered to resign, but the White House turned him down, he said. He didn’t think holding other senior officials accountable would be right because a massive theft of documents by a systems administrator could not have been foreseen, he added.

The NSA has since implemented 42 changes to security procedures aimed at preventing a recurrence. In a system akin to that used with nuclear missiles, two people will be required for the sort of bulk movements of data Snowden handled, so each can watch the other.

Alexander blames the vehemence of the public reaction on what he views as sensational and misleading reporting, amplified by critics who want to radically curtail the agency. He sees a fundamental difference between the intelligence abuses uncovered by Congress in the 1970s — including revelations that the NSA spied without warrants on domestic dissidents — and the programs exposed by Snowden.

“What the Church and Pike committees found” nearly 40 years ago was “that people were doing things that were wrong. That’s not happening here,” Alexander said, referring to the panels headed by Sen. Frank Church (D-ID), and Rep. Otis Pike (D-NY), that examined intelligence-agency activities in that era.

Outside reviews, including one released in December by a presidential task force, he said, found that “lo and behold, NSA is doing everything we asked them to do, and if they screw up, they self-report.”

The task force reported it found “no evidence of illegality or other abuse of authority for the purpose of targeting domestic political activity.” But it also noted “serious and persistent instances of noncompliance” with privacy and other rules. Even if unintentional, those violations “raise serious concerns” about the NSA’s “capacity to manage its authorities in an effective and lawful manner,” the report said.

Alexander’s world view reflects a career in the national security bubble, said Michael German, a former FBI agent now at the Brennan Center for Justice, a civil liberties organization in New York.

“When you’re the good guy and you’re on the side of truth and democracy and the American way, anything that is an impediment to you is naturally bad and needs to be overcome, even if it’s the law,” German said.

But Timothy Edgar, a former White House privacy and civil liberties director who now teaches law at Georgetown University Law Center, said the NSA is “certainly not the villain in this story. They were doing exactly what the president and Congress told them to do.”

What Alexander missed, Edgar and others said, was how Orwellian bulk data collection would look to a public with no context about how the NSA had been using the information.

Unlike the CIA, which makes a considerable effort to shape its image, the NSA had spent years shying away from public engagement. The agency’s culture of secrecy is so extreme that in its early years, its existence was not even acknowledged. Unlike other intelligence agencies, the NSA didn’t boast of its role, a crucial one, in helping find Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

As a result, the NSA had little political capital when Snowden’s disclosures began. Nor did its officials know how to deal with the barrage of stories. The resulting response was flat-footed, agency officials acknowledged privately.

“Keith’s an engineer,” said a former senior intelligence official who worked for Alexander and who commented on condition of anonymity. “With Keith, it was always, ‘If we can do it, we ought to do it.’”

Alexander had a reputation for aggressiveness even before he came to the NSA. For much of his tenure, that approach helped him, particularly in dealing with one of the biggest challenges the NSA faced.

“They had so much data that they didn’t know what to do with it, and one of Alexander’s successes is how you make a mass of data your friend,” said James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Alexander implemented “big data” solutions that revolutionized the sorting and processing of intelligence. One such tool, created by young NSA engineers and later released to the public, was Apache Accumulo, a sorting tool that can process petabytes of data — many Libraries of Congress’ worth.

The NSA relies on those sorts of innovations to keep ahead in the cat-and-mouse game of signals intelligence. And eventually, in five or 10 years, the United States will recover from the Snowden affair, Alexander said. But for now, once-fruitful tactics have become all but useless.

Sophisticated adversaries already knew a lot about U.S. capabilities, of course. But often, “the reason that we’re successful is because people are lazy. They don’t do what they’re supposed to do,” said retired Lt. Gen. Richard Zahner, a former senior NSA official.

Now, Russian ground commanders and al-Qaida cell leaders are on notice that the NSA is nearly everywhere.

Alexander leaves office not knowing how deep the damage will go. It’s a frustrating situation for a man who made his mark acquiring more information than anyone before him. Officials believe Snowden accessed as many as 1.7 million documents, but Alexander said investigators don’t know how many of those he actually took, nor what he’s passed to others.

“What the reporters have, what the Russians have, what the Chinese have” all remain questions, he said. “We don’t know for sure on a lot of those things.”

Fibonacci Blue via Flickr