Republican Budget Bill Signals New Era in Federal Surveillance
by Dean Jackson
“The golden rule of privacy… is that information collected for one purpose can’t be repurposed without permission. We don’t have that rule.” Instead, Nojeim explained, the US has a “sectoral approach” which is weakest in areas related to law enforcement access. “We’re at a point in the march forward of technology,” he said, where ”more human thought than ever in the history of mankind is becoming available to the government without the need for a warrant or court permission. Where that goes depends entirely on the goodwill of professionals who enforce vague laws that have been designed intentionally to give them flexibility in emergencies. Unfortunately, those laws are being exploited by the Administration, which is making false claims about emergency [and] national security risk.”