PRISM: NSA/FBI Internet data mining project

Sun Jun 9 18:26:00 UTC 2013

Dan,

I doubt anyone can answer your question easily because you seem to have
contradictions in your scenario. At one point you say:

> private company to collect information about terrorist entities, who
> in turn privately contracts with the top X telecom providers and Y
> social media companies

but then you continue:
> to obtain all available information that it can, via TAP ports or
> direct database access.

and then:
> That private organization, through analysis, knows a lot about you

I'm confused, in your scenario, is the data collection limited to
"terrorist entities", or does your statement, "all available information
that it can" mean that it gets everyone's info, and then does their
filtering later?

Additionally, one would hope that by "terrorist entities", you would be
referring to those who plan on hurting or killing innocent people,
whether that be an Islamofactist terrorist planning to blow up a
government building, or a right wing terrorist planning to do the same
(for different reasons), or a environmentalists planning to sink a legal
whaling boat, or a anti-abortionist planning to blow up an abortion
clinic... take your pick. The point being that mass-killing of innocent
people is the common thread... NOT the politics. And I hope that you
haven't downward defined this to someone that could be easily used to
"pick off" political opponents, right?

> Have your 4th Amendment rights been abridged in this scenario

Sorry if this comes across as rude or snobby, but I think you just need
to read the 4th Amendment about 20 times to yourself and let it all soak in.

TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION:
If the Federal Government is paying a private entity to do the snooping,
then they are a defacto agent of the state. That doesn't make the 4th
amendment apply any less applicable. Even then, to abide by the 4th
amendment, there should be SPECIFIC persons/orgs AND specific info/items
that are being searched where that search is SPECIFICALLY approved by a
judge or court IN ADVANCE (no super wide "blanket" approvals, no broad
fishing expeditions)... only THEN does the searching for the information
meet 4th amendment requirements. The fact that the search was of your
e-mail or phone records doesn't make the 4th amendment apply any less
than if they were looking inside the drawer in the nightstand next to
your bed!

There are notable exceptions... for example, an employer is really the
owner of the mailbox, not their employee. Therefore, there is an
argument that government employees don't have "privacy rights" from the
government for their official work e-mail accounts. There are probably
several other exceptions like that. But such exceptions are a tiny
percentage of the whole.

-- 
Rob McEwen
http://dnsbl.invaluement.com/
rob at invaluement.com
+1 (478) 475-9032