Privacy and Consequences: Legal and Policy Structures for Implementing New Counter-Terrorism Technologies and Protecting Civil Liberty

31 Pages Posted: 5 Aug 2005

See all articles by Paul Rosenzweig

Paul Rosenzweig

George Washington University School of Law

Date Written: July 2005

Abstract

New 21st century technologies (ranging from data-mining, to link analysis and data-integration, to biometrics, to new encryption techniques) have much to offer in achieving the compelling national goal of preventing terrorism. This paper asks a practical, concrete question: Can the new technologies be developed, deployed, implemented, and operated in a manner that allows them to be used as an effective anti-terrorism tool while ensuring that there is minimal risk that use of the tool-set will infringe upon American civil liberties?

Practical answers to the problem of oversight can, and must, be crafted. This paper is an effort to sketch out precisely what those safeguards ought to be and how they might impact the most prominent proposed new technologies. Privacy values of the anonymity form have previously been protected by technological inefficiency. With the demise of that protection, a new mechanism of controlling the consequences that arise from scrutiny must be substituted. Broadly speaking those mechanisms should minimize intrusiveness; provide for automated audit and oversight and accountability; and embed within the system architecture policy rules for imposing adverse consequences on individuals.

Keywords: privacy, technology, civil liberties, terrorism, database, dataveillance, information sharing

Suggested Citation

Rosenzweig, Paul, Privacy and Consequences: Legal and Policy Structures for Implementing New Counter-Terrorism Technologies and Protecting Civil Liberty (July 2005). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=766484 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.766484

Paul Rosenzweig (Contact Author)

George Washington University School of Law ( email )

2000 H Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20052
United States

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