ETC.
Son of Big Brother:
The Real-Life Privacy Issues Behind THE INSIDER
by Reece Hirsch
At one time or another, we've all had that sense that we were being watched. Your pulse quickens and the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, even though there's absolutely no evidence that anyone is observing you. While most dismiss that feeling as a momentary spasm of paranoia, it turns out that, all too often, it may be justified. The government is gathering vast amounts of data about all of us as part of its efforts to combat terrorism, and that fact underlies one of the key plot elements of my debut legal thriller, THE INSIDER.
THE INSIDER tells the story of Will Connelly, a young corporate attorney in a San Francisco law firm, who has just made partner. His first assignment as a partner is to negotiate a merger transaction involving Jupiter Software, the world's leading maker of encryption programs. Will is asked to take over as lead counsel for the transaction because the attorney who was conducting the negotiations has just died under highly suspicious circumstances. As he conducts due diligence for the transaction, Will soon discovers that Jupiter Software was built upon a secret.
In the early Nineties, the National Security Agency (NSA) developed a powerful encryption device known as the Clipper Chip, which was to be used to encrypt telecommunications transmissions. The encryption software was to be made available for use by private businesses and individuals. However, the Clipper Chip was designed to provide government agencies with "key access" to all encrypted transmissions for law enforcement and national security purposes. The program was criticized in Congressional hearings based upon privacy concerns and was ultimately abandoned in 1995.
THE INSIDER posits that the Clipper Chip program was never really abandoned, but went forward through an undisclosed deal between the NSA and a private software company, and that the NSA continued to secretly monitor the communications of private citizens during the ensuing years. THE INSIDER also considers what might happen if the encryption keys that permitted government access to that vast volume of personal communications fell into the wrong hands.
As an attorney specializing in privacy and security issues, I've long been aware of the Clipper Chip program. The program was real, but it was entirely abandoned by 1996. However, the issues highlighted in THE INSIDER are still very much with us today and have never been more timely. In the wake of 9-11, the NSA has continued striving to achieve what was once referred to as "Total Information Awareness," accumulating staggering volumes of records of telephone and e-mail communications by private citizens. In order to gather these vast stores of data, the NSA requires the cooperation of private business, particularly telecommunications companies and Internet service providers.
On December 16, 2005, the New York Times published a front-page story revealing a covert, long-standing domestic surveillance program that had been conducted by the NSA under the Bush Administration in the years following the September 11 attacks. This was the other major inspiration for the premise of THE INSIDER. I simply imagined that such a program had been conducted since 1995, and had begun with the supposedly scrapped Clipper Chip program. I found the notion that telecoms might share their enormous stores of private transaction data with the government for domestic surveillance, without appropriate scrutiny or oversight, to be particularly troubling.
If you're interested in reading a well-researched, thorough, and thoroughly frightening, account of the government's surveillance programs over the past 25 years, I recommend "The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State" by Shane Harris (The Penguin Press, 2010). While I can't begin to do justice to that story in all its complexity, I would like to point out a few events that demonstrate why government surveillance, and private sector cooperation in that effort, are issues that are not going away anytime soon.
- In February 2010, Google announced that it was teaming up with the NSA to investigate a recent hack attack against its network. Google is working on an agreement with the NSA that would allow the parties to collaborate in determining the hacker's methods and how Google can improve its security to avoid future attacks. Washington Post sources have stated the deal will not provide the NSA with access to users' searches or e-mail communications, but privacy advocacy groups, such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center (also featured in THE INSIDER) are asking questions.
- On January 20, 2010, the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General issued a report stating that, beginning in 2003, the FBI routinely circumvented and often violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in making requests to telephone service providers for call records.
- In January 2006, a whistleblower came forward, through two lawsuits filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, alleging that specific AT&T facilities, including one on Folsom Street in San Francisco, had permitted the NSA to directly intercept and analyze millions of ordinary Americans' communications. That case has been argued on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal and is awaiting a decision.
While it can be argued that there is a need for our government to access personal data to combat terrorism and other threats, the personal privacy rights of Americans cannot be disregarded in that process. THE INSIDER paints a picture of what can happen when the government goes too far in secretly gathering and using our personal information, a picture that is, unfortunately, not very far removed from reality.
Reece Recommends...
In the Loop—This caustic and very funny British comedy is a little like the anti-West Wing. In The West Wing, everyone was idealistic, committed and well-informed. In the Loop portrays a world of British and American politicians and military leaders where everyone is venal, self-serving, foul-mouthed and stupid. Maybe this says something about me, but I suspect that In the Loop is a bit closer to the truth.
Heartbeat Radio by Sondre Lerche—Two-Way Monologue was excellent, and this new release may be even better. It's sort of like a poppier version of Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom. So why haven't I heard anyone talking about it? Who else would write a pop song about failed James Bond George Lazenby ("Like Lazenby") or a shout-out to unsung Eighties Britpop heroes Prefab Sprout ("I Cannot Let You Go").
The books of Kem Nunn—He invented the genre of surf-noir, and if you haven't read books like Tapping the Source or Dogs of Winter, then you're missing one of the most distinctive voices in crime fiction. Nunn has mapped out a bright, dangerous landscape that is uniquely his own.
"The High Road" by Broken Bells—This song from the new collaboration between Danger Mouse and James Mercer of the Shins is hooky, expansive and melodic. Think the Shins in Panavision. If the rest of the CD is up to this standard, then this will be a good one.
"Before the Money Came (Battle of Bettye LaVette)" by Bettye LaVette—Okay, this is a year or two old, but I still can't stop listening to it. R&B veteran Bettye LaVette basically tells the story of her life "before the money started rolling in," chronicling everything from $50 gigs to a near-miss record deal with Atlantic Records. But the reason you should download this on iTunes immediately is simply because it's a titanic slice of raw, Stax-style R&B, with rock-solid backing by the Drive-by Truckers. A bit of backstory: the father of Patterson Hood of the Truckers was a session musician at Muscle Shoals Studios and played on many of the great soul records recorded there. Now he's made a sideline of relaunching the careers of some of the remaining greats from that era (LaVette and, more recently, Booker T).
Life on Mars—I'm finally catching up on this fine BBC series. The U.S. remake never really worked for me, which just highlights what a delicate balancing act the British version pulls off—part 1970s period piece, part police procedural, part spooky study of a man in a coma struggling to regain consciousness. When main character Sam Tyler receives communications from the waking world through the characters in an old-fashioned TV test pattern—a little girl and a clown doll—it creeps me out every time.
