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George Radwanksi
In late
June, 2003, Radwanski resigned after being attacked by the media
and politicians for extravagent use of his expense account. This
included things like $400 lunches for two and the taking of his
female assistant on international junkets wher they stayed at
very expensive hotels. He claimed he was persecuted by enemies
who didn't like the way he was doing his job. Jezz, George --
I thought you were doing a pretty good job - - couldn't you have
eaten fish and chips and stayed at the Holiday Inn?
Privacy under 'unprecedented
assault'
By BRUCE CHEADLE, Canadian
Press,, January 29, 2003
Ottawa - Imagine a Canada in
which every citizen is finger-printed and retina-scanned.
Imagine massive government
databases that use these biometric identifiers to catalogue people's
travel habits at home and abroad, their Internet usage, their
e-mail and cell phone conversations and even videotapes them
as they converse on a street corner.
Such a scenario was tabled
Wednesday in the House of Commons by the federal ombudsman appointed
to safeguard Canadian privacy. And George Radwanksi says this
Orwellian society could be the natural evolution of the Liberal
government's "unprecedented assault" on privacy rights.
"A year and half ago,
if anyone had described the measures now being introduced, no
one would have thought it would happen," the federal Privacy
Commissioner told a news conference after he submitted his report.
"It's easy in a country
like Canada to say bad things don't happen, nobody would intrude
on our rights ... [but] all we have to do is look back at history."
Whether it be the internment
of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s or the RCMP opening mail and
torching barns in Quebec in the 1970s, "we're not immune
from excesses by the state," said Mr. Radwanski.
Today, the terrorist attacks
of September 2001 appear to have given Ottawa carte blanche to
trample privacy rights that Canadians long have taken for granted,
he argues.
He listed five specific complaints
Wednesday:
·A personal travel database
on all citizens by the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency that
will be shared with any other government department that asks.
·Proposed state powers
to monitor electronic communications.
·A proposed national
identification card with biometric identifiers.
·Checking all air travellers
for outstanding warrants under section 4.82 of the new anti-terror
legislation, Bill C-17.
·Federal support for
video surveillance on public streets by the RCMP.
Mr. Radwanski said each of
these measures individually is deeply disturbing.
"Together, they add up
to an unprecedented assault on the fundamental human right of
privacy by the government of Canada," he said.
And they're all being undertaken
in "blatant, open and repeated disregard" of Mr. Radwanski's
warnings to the contrary.
Indeed, the government didn't
appear to take Mr. Radwanski's latest admonitions any more seriously
than his many previous warnings.
"We all know the Commissioner,"
said Immigration Minister Denis Coderre, who is floating the
plan for national identity cards.
"He's got the right to
say what he says, he's got the right to think what he thinks.
I believe we need the debate."
Transport Minister David Collenette
was similarly dismissive.
"He has a view, which
is natural - he's the Privacy Commissioner," said Mr. Collenette,
who is responsible for collecting air traveller information.
"We happen to believe
that the current bill strikes a balance...."
Even John Reynolds, the Canadian
Alliance House leader, said Mr. Radwanski was barking up the
wrong tree.
"The information is necessary.
We are at war [on terrorism] and we have to protect ourselves."
Mr. Reynolds also suggested
that law-abiding citizens with nothing to hide shouldn't be overly
concerned, a commonly voiced opinion.
Such arguments clearly frustrate
Mr. Radwanski.
He is careful to note that
his complaints about antiterror measures relate primarily to
function creep, when information collected to stop terrorists
is subsequently used for a host of other purposes.
The greatest threats to privacy,
he wrote in his report, "either have nothing at all to do
with anti-terrorism, or they present no credible promise of effectively
enhancing security."
He's equally adamant that the
why-should-I-worry? mentality of law-abiding citizens is an argument
"at the intellectual level of a bumper sticker."
The same reasoning suggests
police should be free to wander through everyone's homes, read
their mail or listen in on their phone calls at any time.
"We all have something
to hide in terms of our interests, our relationships, our attitudes,
choices we've made, mistakes we've made, financial circumstances,
our personal habits," said Mr. Radwanski.
"Not because they're illegal.
Not because they're shameful. [But] simply because they are private."
Copyright © 2003 Bell
Globemedia Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Canadian and Dutch Officials
Warn of Security's Side Effects
By ADAM CLYMER, NY Times
ASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 2003 -
Privacy officials from Canada and the Netherlands complained
today that the American campaign to crack down on terrorism was
needlessly infringing on the privacy of their citizens.
Peter J. Hustinx, president
of the Data Protection Authority of the Netherlands, said the
United States Customs Service had insisted on access to a wide
variety of passenger information, not merely names and passport
numbers, but credit card information, telephone contacts and
even meal preferences, for flights to the United States, even
though release of that information violated laws in Europe.
Advertisement
Airlines were required to provide
the information under legislation enacted after the terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Mr. Hustinx said the European
Union had recently agreed to American demands for the information,
starting March 5. He said the Union had assured airlines they
would not be prosecuted, but had directed them to inform their
passengers that the information was being provided to the American
government. The European Union has said it was satisfied with
safeguards Washington promised for the information.
George Radwanski, privacy commissioner
of Canada, said his government was proposing a biometric national
identity card, explaining that the United States would require
it for crossing the border. He too complained about the breadth
of the demand for passenger information - "basically everything
the airline knows about you."
Mr. Hustinx and Mr. Radwanski
spoke today at a meeting on the International Association of
Privacy Professionals. Mr. Hustinx said that Europe had given
in to avoid fines and denials of landing rights for its airlines.
The United States imposed the requirements unilaterally, he said.
Mr. Radwanski spoke of American
pressures in an interview and in his annual report filed last
month. At the meeting today he spoke more generally, saying today's
terrorists sought to attack the nature of American and Western
society. "Our freedoms and values, very much including privacy,
are precisely the target. Far from making us safer, every ill-conceived
reduction of those freedoms - every needless encroachment on
privacy - would be a victory for terrorism."
He warned that antiterrorist
efforts should be carefully directed and limited in scope. He
said "we must guard against the tendency of governments
to create new data bases of privacy-invasive information on justified,
exceptional grounds of enhancing security, and then seek to use
that information for a whole range of other law enforcement or
governmental purposes, simply because it's there and available."
The United States Customs Service
issued a statement today saying it uses the data "strictly
for border security purposes, including use in threat analysis
to identify and interdict potential terrorists and other threats
to national and public security."
The Customs statement said
the data enabled agents "to focus their resources on the
highest risk passengers, thereby facilitating and safeguarding
bona fide travelers."
The spokeswoman declined to
comment specifically on the complaints by Mr. Hustinx and Mr.
Radwanski about the breadth of information it sought. She would
not say when it wanted data that included credit card or meal
preference information. The statement said the "requested
information in the Passenger Name Record includes but is not
limited to the P.N.R. locator code, reservation date, ticket
information, form of payment itinerary information and P.N.R.
history."
Mr. Radwanski said there were
more than 30 items in the record, including not only the items
cited by Customs but also all contact phone numbers, dietary
preferences, health needs such as wheelchairs, frequent-flier
information and how much luggage a traveler had.
Mr. Radwanski's complaint about
the biometric national identity card - which the Congress has
forbidden this United States government from developing for American
citizens - was summarized in his annual report to Canada's Parliament
last month.
He said that "government
officials have repeatedly told me privately that pressure from
the United States government is a strong motivating factor"
behind the identity card proposal. He said such a card would
be "absolutely useless as an antiterrorist measure"
and would push Canada "toward becoming the kind of society
where the police can stop anyone on the streets and demand `Your
papers, please.' "
Copyright 2003 The
New York Times Company
Plan to snoop on fliers
takes intrusion to new heights
USA Today, Editorial Posted
3/11/2003
In the aftermath of Sept. 11,
2001, fliers have put up with federal screeners inspecting their
shoes, examining their belongings and, for some, even conducting
body searches - all to ensure safe air travel.
But the government now is proposing
to take screening to an unprecedented level of intrusiveness:
rifling through extensive commercial and government data on all
air travelers without their knowledge or permission and using
the information to assign each flier a security-risk ranking.
In a brief announcement this
month, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said
it had hired defense contractor Lockheed Martin to build a national
system that would screen travelers to ferret out those who pose
a risk to air safety. The agency downplays the system's reach
as no more intrusive than a credit check.
Yet an earlier, little-noticed
filing by the TSA's former parent, the Department of Transportation,
painted a more worrisome portrait. It outlines an unparalleled
plan to review wide-ranging information on all passengers who
book flights. The proposal is so sweeping that it could include
searches of personal data - from parking tickets to Internet
usage to credit reports.
The TSA's aim is to determine
how much of a terror threat passengers pose before they board
a plane. While the goal is sound, the plan crosses a line from
security to invasion of privacy.
If the TSA proceeds with plans
to start the program next year, it would represent a government-sanctioned
reversal of longstanding privacy principles, without safeguards
to prevent authorities' misuse of information they might obtain.
The TSA says its authority
comes from a 2001 law that created the agency and mandates the
use of a "computer-assisted passenger pre-screening system."
Yet the TSA's plan goes far beyond any current government-data-collection
system.
That alarms legal scholars,
who say the proposal violates the Constitution's guarantee of
protection from unwarranted government searches and the right
to travel freely. Travelers are worried, too. A TSA test of the
program this month at Delta Air Lines has spawned a boycott-Delta
Web site that received hundreds of e-mails expressing concern
about the security move.
Complaints also are being lodged
by privacy watchdogs across the political spectrum, including
former House Republican leader Dick Armey and the American Civil
Liberties Union. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., warns that the plan
authorizes "any fishing expedition imaginable."
Under the TSA's proposal, a
computer would search passenger data obtained from airline-ticket
information, government records and commercial databases that
sell personal information gathered from scores of sources. Passengers
then would be assigned one of three rankings printed in code
on their boarding passes. Green would mean routine security,
and yellow would require added checks. Red would bar passengers
from flying and subject them to a law enforcement investigation.
Among the most troubling features
of the plan, as described in the official notice and explained
in interviews with TSA officials:
Widespread prying. The TSA
would gain access to "financial and transactional data,"
such as credit reports and records of purchases. Even confidential
business records could be scrutinized. Legal experts say the
reach of the categories listed could open up a broad range of
information about an individual's life. The TSA won't say what
information would be off-limits.
Long-term dossiers. The TSA
says data would be kept only until passengers completed their
travel. But for individuals "deemed to pose a possible risk
to transportation," the data would be kept "for up
to 50 years."
Data sharing. Information on
fliers rated as high risks could be given to private groups,
the news media and government authorities.
Weak protections. The system
would be exempt from federal privacy protections that grant individuals
access to government records on them so errors can be corrected.
That would prevent passengers from learning what is compiled
on them or how their threat level was determined.
The TSA says the plan is still
in the draft stages and promises that the version it puts into
effect next year will be less intrusive. If that's the case,
the TSA could allay public concerns by making public its actual
plan.
For now, however, the proposal
raises many of same privacy concerns as the Total Information
Awareness system, a Pentagon domestic-anti-terrorism-surveillance
system. That plan would comb government and other databases to
spot threatening patterns, but it drew sharp criticism from Congress,
which last month placed strict limits on the system.
The TSA is hiding behind the
authorization from Congress to float its plan. If the agency
isn't willing to change course, the same lawmakers who created
this monster need to slay it. Passengers deserve a screening
system that reduces the risk of terrorism without giving the
government broad new authority to snoop into their private lives.
© Copyright 2003 USA
TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
