In December 2011 I was asked to keynote a workshop for the Office of Naval Research on a topic I knew rather little about: The National Security Implications of Social Media. Nice chance to go look stuff up and explore a realm I’d so far seen only through my own superficial exposure and the incidental comments of my teenaged daughters and their boyfriends.

The topic was chosen, of course, because others thought the question contained a depth that likely extended far beyond the trivial and into areas that might require alteration of policy, legislation, or mindset. I found far more of value than I expected, and the very real national security implications I eventually drew were in areas I had not considered before my research began.

“Social media” is, as might be expected, a loaded term across the generations with a number of formal definitions. It seems reasonable to go to Wikipedia, an exceptionally good example of social media, for a recursive definition: “Social media includes web-based and mobile technologies used to turn communication into interactive dialogue.” Many would add specific mention of the creation and exchange of user-generated content that moves far beyond simple dialogue into entertainment, education, persuasion, and polemic.

I have, of course, a day job, so I first spent several weeks reading a broad range of publications in the evening, drawing a few links, and then talking on weekends with people who actively contribute in spaces reasonably referred to as social media. A listing from Kaplan and Haenlein for example, includes six kinds:

1. Collaborative projects (e.g. Wikipedia)
2. Blogs and microblogs (this essay, Twitter)
3. Content Communities (YouTube)
4. Social networking (Facebook)
5. Virtual game worlds (World of Warcraft)
6. Virtual social worlds (Second Life)

I’ve now explored several examples in all of them.

Historically I have been a casual editor of Wikipedia (like thousands of others); I wrote blogs when I was the CEO of a humanitarian technology NGO; I have Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts; I’ve owned an island in Second Life since 2006; and I have all 1.8G of World of Warcraft’s core engine loaded on my MacBook Pro. But I do very little on any of them and knew next to nothing about any social media-based threats to nation-states, their economies, or their meta-identities like state religion and ethno-cultural mores.

My own experience with social media began with the SMS texting I used while leading a team during the tsunami response in western Banda Aceh, Indonesia in early 2005. That tsunami response is now recognized to be one of the first United Nations relief efforts that did not have HF (analog) radio as its communications bedrock – a great deal was done digitally (mostly, in the early days, by SMS) and much of it for the first time. The result was positive and after-action reports from the tsunami response suggested further development of field-expedient digital communications methods would be reasonable.

Later in 2005 I responded to Hurricane Katrina as the Joint Task Force Surgeon (Forward) for JTF Katrina, working from the Command Center tent in Belle Chase, Louisiana. During those days I kept six different streams of communication active on my desk and on any given day perhaps half worked as expected. It was, to be honest, useful to discover how fragile US communications infrastructure has been and, in many cases, remains. SMS, in Katrina, again proved valuable and my fairly conservative opinion on the value of field-based digital communications began to shift.

My social media experience continued in 2006 as I explored the virtual world Second Life in preparation for a international disaster response demonstration called Strong Angel 3. An “island” in Second Life that was donated to the team for virtual response coordination required a surprising amount of non-content effort as I ran across the digital variant of asking “who knows how to do this?” for the first time. We had no one designated to manage the technology (an ongoing problem, still, in 2012) so even valuable content was presented sub-optimally. For me, the value of virtual worlds for collaboration remained questionable.

A few years later in January 2010 I led a team into the Haiti earthquake response. Within a few days of the quake I became a part of the larger team that established Skype as a critical collaboration tool from our location on the Port au Prince airfield, reaching out to the volunteer communities around the world. Those digital volunteers, a new breed, were suddenly doing wonderful work in a complex emergency, coordinating translation, mapping, imagery evaluation, logistics, and more, using processes and tools unknown three years earlier. In some cases, the processes were developed as the tool capabilities were discovered and those tools were free. It was a remarkable burst of effective digital work, mostly from digital natives, in the service of a great and urgent need, and from it much has flowered.

Though there have been many substantial efforts developed within a global gathering of technical volunteers over the subsequent two years, one stands out for me because I use it daily. During that first week in Haiti, members of the Skype “disaster response” chat room from the UN, the Australian military, Canadian telcoms, OpenStreetMap, USAID and many others formed another Skype chat room called “All Hazards Disaster Experts Group” curated with a light, effective touch by Brian Steckler of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

That group window, now with about 60 members, has remained open on my desktop every day for the past two years. It receives contributions from professional colleagues around the world every few hours and in those eight square inches I hear about deployments, publications, job changes, and interesting conferences. Professional questions appear and are addressed in minutes. In a true emergency like Typhoon Washi, which hit Mindanao in December, we collated a little information in real-time from each of our areas of expertise to build a reasonably coherent picture rapidly, and that helped shape, in a small way, the real-world response.

Such an international conversation has historically been logistically complex and rather expensive, but now Skype has made it intuitive, expected, and free. It is easy to note that such a conversation bypasses all conventional disaster coordination efforts both regional and global; sovereignty does not enter into the collegial equation. Such a capability has some obvious implications for national security (and, perhaps, global security) that seem both positive and negative. I’ll begin to explore those a little – particularly virtual political opposition, virtual outbreak surveillance, virtual currencies, and virtual education – in upcoming conversations.

About the author

Eric Rasmussen, MD, MDM, FACP, is a physician living on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle. He spent 25 years on active duty with the US Navy, serving as Fleet Surgeon to the US Navy’s Third Fleet, and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at a large academic medical center. He directed all three Strong Angel International Disaster Response Demonstrations while a principle investigator with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and has deployed more than 15 times to real-world wars and disasters. Those deployments included three times to Bosnia, twice to Afghanistan, and ten months in and around the Iraq War, in addition to Banda Aceh, Katrina, Haiti, and others. He currently serves as vice-president for Humanitarian Systems at AccessAgility, working with the US and Mexican governments on the protection of highly vulnerable populations in Mexico City. He can be reached at RasmussenE [at] AccessAgility [dot] com.

The House Homeland Security Committee’s counterterrorism panel held the hearing, which sought to examine the intersection between DHS’ monitoring of social media channels and online news for real-time information on disasters and ensuring privacy for users of Twitter, Facebook and myriad other online forums.

Panel chair Patrick Meehan (R-PA) said while he understood the need for DHS to glean real-time situational awareness from social networks during a natural disaster or terrorist attack, he raised questions about the agency creating a “chilling effect” on free speech by also collecting information on the political opinions. In particular, Meehan raised concerns about DHS plans to collect information on the opinions of private citizens on government actions, including the views of Minnesota residents on plans to relocate prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the state.

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), the panel’s ranking member, echoed Meehan’s concerns. “How can DHS fully exploit the benefits and opportunities of social media without impeding on the civil rights and civil liberties of those who choose to use social media?” she asked in her opening statement. “Can DHS actively and effectively monitor social media in an open and above board way without being accused of spying on lawful activities?”

Lawmaker cited concerns raised by the Electronic Privacy Information Center that the DHS program is unlawful and was used to collect and disseminate criticism of the agency. The group is calling for DHS to stop monitoring social networks for public opinion and to stop all media monitoring until appropriate safeguards can be put into place.

But two DHS witnesses assured lawmakers at the hearing that that agency was not monitoring social media in an attempt to collect data on the speech of U.S. citizens. Mary Ellen Callahan, the chief privacy officer at DHS, said the agency only uses social networks in three contexts: for external communication with the public; to be aware of breaking news and create situational awareness; and for use in law enforcement and investigation activities.

Callahan also said in all three cases the agency adheres to agency-wide standards to protect privacy. “No element of First Amendment speech is collected, disseminated or analyzed,” Callahan said in response to a line of questioning from Meehan. “We’re only reporting on the ‘what,’ not the ‘who.’”

She further added that the agency at one point considered monitoring social media networks for public reaction to government initiatives, but said it was merely “an early example of what could be possible” and said DHS never pursued the reports.

Richard Chávez, director of DHS’ Office of Operations Coordination and Planning, said the National Operations Center monitored the media to provide situational awareness to other federal agencies, which he said was “only part of the bigger [intelligence] picture.” In response to GOP questions, Chávez said the agency did not get requests from other agencies to collect information on specific individuals, adding that much of the monitoring was built around specific keywords.

Lawmaker from both sides of the aisle requested additional information on a host of topics, but did not say whether they would pursue legislation to amend DHS’ mission or privacy policies. Closing the hearing, Meehan only said the panel had “begun an important discussion” and would “continue to ask these tough questions,” noting there could be similar issues with information collection at the state level.

One particularly interesting panel focused on the future of social media and real-time awareness, not only for individuals, but for a society that is still learning to deal with developments in social media, communication technologies and crowdsourced information. The speakers discussed how this pervasive technology could aid in real-time awareness, but also raised legitimate concerns about impacts on security and privacy.

Panelist Lou Martinage, with business intelligence firm MicroStrategy, offered the perspective of the private sector, focusing on how social media can be mined for real-time information on consumer preferences and behavior. Martinage described how MicroStrategy works with its clients to dig into the vast amounts of data available in the digital communication sphere, aggregate and analyze the information, and derive insights that can help the companies better address their customers’ needs.

For the past few years, MicroStrategy has been honing in on the potential of Facebook and the valuable consumer data that can be accessed through the platform. For Martinage, the primary use of Facebook is in the field of sentiment monitoring. In other words, Facebook is a spectacular tool for obtaining information on how consumers feel about a company’s product, allowing businesses to personalize marketing and commerce through promotions and offers, he said.

Martinage says the culmination of this effort can be seen in a MicroStrategy application called Wisdom, which allows companies to analyze massive amounts of data to identify trends, gauge consumer confidence, and answer questions about market perception of a product or brand.

Others looked at the potential “dark side” of social media. Rand Waltzman, with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, pointed out that “as more life takes place in the network public sphere, the more good and bad things will happen,” highlighting privacy and national security concerns in particular. One of his main fears is the ease with which individuals can disseminate false or harmful information through the very same technologies that aid in real-time awareness and disaster relief.

For example, Waltzman cited Operation Valhalla in Iraq, where American troops succeeded in rescuing a hostage and confiscating weapons from a terrorist group, killing 16 members of the group in the process. However, before the troops had returned to their base, other members  of the terrorist organization swooped in and rearranged the bodies onto prayer mats, took a picture using a mobile phone, and uploaded it to the social media space — making it look like Americans had killed unarmed civilians in the middle of prayer.

Waltzman’s concern lies in the fact that the information can reach a large number of people before the damage can actually be addressed and the false information refuted. The speed at which the internet moves is light years ahead of our capacities to monitor the information available, he said.

Unfortunately, Waltzman added, social media and the internet is an environment filled with contradiction: One can attempt to protect their own privacy, but has a very limited ability to control what others may say about them. In the end, Waltzman said, the positive aspects of social media can easily be perverted, and we need to tackle the policies that are preventing us from better addressing these issues.

While Waltzman’s comments deserve serious consideration, the panel did end on a hopeful note, with the words of Patrick Meier, of the Ushahidi Project. Ushahidi is a platform that allows for the crowdsourcing of information through Twitter, SMS text messages, and other internet sources onto a live map that allows for real-time crisis-mapping. The success of Ushahidi in crises situations, such as the Haiti earthquake in 2010 and the Arab Spring uprisings, has brought the social media and emergency management community’s attention to its potential. The project is a prime example of crowdsourcing working to increase situational awareness in crisis situations.

Meier brought the audience’s attention to the needs of volunteers in crisis situations. Ushahidi currently does much manual crowdsourcing in real time, but developments in machine learning and natural language processing are allowing algorithms to do more work separating valuable information from useless information in the stream of text messages and tweets. Meier’s outlook is very positive, and he has given great thought to issues arising from credibility of information.

Overall, the mood at the conference was one of endless possibilities. Nonetheless, Waltzman raised valid concerns regarding privacy and security in the growing, interconnected network that is the internet. And while Meier and Martinage point out the immense potential for real-time awareness, we must not forget that there are very legitimate concerns that need to be addressed before these technologies can truly permeate every level of our society.

About the author

Luisa Castellanos is a research assistant in the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Luisa is also a junior at Georgetown University pursuing a B.S. in Foreign Service in Science, Technology and International Affairs with a concentration in Energy and Environment. She is a native of Brazil and is interested in energy security and renewables, as well as using new means of communication to shape science and technology policy.

Sotomayor asked “whether people reasonably expect that their movements will be recorded and aggregated in a manner that enables the Government to ascertain, more or less at will, their political and religious beliefs, sexual habits, and so on.” Sotomayor and all the other justices found limits in the Fourth Amendment. I want to look more broadly.

The Fourth Amendment establishes the boundary for government action, but it does not constrain the private sector. What happens if the government cannot follow people because of Fourth Amendment restrictions but the private sector can? After all, what good is the Fourth Amendment if a private company can follow you down every street and sell the information to marketers, profilers, and government agencies too?

Sotomayor raised this question indirectly when she questioned existing case law that holds that an individual has no expectation of privacy in information given to banks and other third parties:

More fundamentally, it may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties. E.g., [Smith v. Maryland - 442 U.S. 735, 742 (1979)] United States v. Miller, 425 U. S. 435, 443 (1976). This approach is ill suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks.

Many in the privacy community stood up and cheered when reading these words. Privacy advocates were critical of the Miller decision from the start. Much more so than in 1976 when the Court decided Miller, we live in a world where much of our personal information is held by third parties, including banks, schools, utilities, supermarkets, credit bureaus, credit grantors, and Internet providers of goods and services. Many of us live our lives on the Internet and in the cloud. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, EBay, and other companies have our aggregated, detailed data in their files. The issues here are major, and I need to shed complex issues cavalierly as we proceed.

I want to follow the track of “privacy in public” that was at the heart of Jones. If the courts suitably restrict the ability of government to surveil us in public, that may only go so far to protect our privacy. The private sector at present has nearly unbounded ability to track individual activities on the streets, in malls, and elsewhere. Current technology – including cameras, license plate readers, face recognition software, drones and more – would, if more universally employed, allow private companies to follow our every step in public. This is already largely the case online, and I leave that controversy aside for now.

Can we stop private sector data collection in public? If the government seeks to constrain the ability of the private sector to collect information in public spaces, it runs into the First Amendment. For example, if you want to pursue photography and First Amendment issues, you can start with a summary about Photography & the First Amendment at the First Amendment Center website. It’s not simple or easy. The conflicts are real. By the way, restrictions on data use are related to data collection and are just as complex. We’ll leave those use issues aside too.

Privacy conflicts with the First Amendment are nothing new. They arise in libel cases, in privacy tort cases, and elsewhere. Broadly stated, the question is to what extent is it constitutional for the government to restrict First Amendment activity in order to protect an individual’s right of privacy?

This brings us squarely to my point: Two forty-year old cases allowed restrictions on the collection of information about individuals in public space. The main purpose here is to bring these cases to broader attention.

Forty years ago, Ralph Nader was an author and lecturer on automotive safety as well as a critic of the safety and design of General Motors’ (GM) vehicles. The company hired people to follow Nader to collect comprising information about the consumer advocate and, ultimately, made him famous. Nader sued GM, alleging that GM and others conducted interviews with Nader’s acquaintances, kept him under surveillance in public places for an unreasonable length of time, made threatening, harassing and obnoxious telephone calls to him, tapped his telephone and eavesdropped on his private conversations with others, and conducted a continuing and harassing investigation of him. See Nader v. General Motors Corp., 255 N.E.2d 765 (NY 1970), 1970 N.Y. LEXIS 1618.

The court made it clear that not all gathering of personal information is actionable as a privacy tort. The information had to be of a confidential nature and the conduct has to be unreasonably intrusive. Not all of the conduct alleged by Nader to be an invasion of privacy was recognized by the court as sufficient under the law to support a lawsuit. However, the court found that surveillance, even in a public place such as a bank, could be actionable if “overzealous.”

In the court’s opinion, New York Court of Appeal Chief Judge Stanley Fuld wrote:

A person does not automatically make public everything he does merely by being in a public place, and the mere fact that Nader was in a bank did not give anyone the right to try to discover the amount of money he was withdrawing. On the other hand, if the plaintiff acted in such a way as to reveal that fact to any casual observer, then, it may not be said that the appellant intruded into his private sphere. In any event, though, it is enough for present purposes to say that the surveillance allegation is not insufficient as a matter of law.

The court refused to dismiss Nader’s claim of invasion of privacy and returned the case for trial. Nader won, but just barely. The court’s conclusion that the surveillance allegation was “not insufficient as a matter of law” was hardly a ringing endorsement. Nevertheless, the decision gave Nader enough of a victor that GM agreed to settle the case.

Another case involved surveillance of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, widow of the President John F. Kennedy, by a self-styled paparazzo who aggressively followed and photographed Onassis and her children. See Galella v. Onassis, 487 F.2d 986 (2d Cir. 1973). The defendant argued in part that the First Amendment’s right of a free press established an immunity that protected newsmen from any liability for their conduct while gathering news. The court readily dismissed this argument because crimes and torts committed in newsgathering are not constitutionally protected. Finding that the photographer “insinuated himself into the very fabric of Mrs. Onassis’ life,” the court issued a detailed injunction limiting the photographer from approaching Onassis. However, the court refused to prevent the taking or selling of photographs about her or her children because the restriction was unsupported by the evidence.

I wrote a bit about these cases a few years ago and suggested that extrapolating from the Nader and Onassis cases is difficult. That’s still true, but the ability to follow individuals in public is much easier and less costly than it was in the 1970s when these cases were decided. It’s not hard to imagine everyone being followed by technology when walking the streets, driving in cars, and shopping in stores. What was done to Nader and Onassis at great expense can be done today to everyone at little cost.

Do the Nader and Onassis cases point the way toward using tort law or other law as a method of controlling surveillance by private actors? I can’t offer any simple or easy answer to this question.  I do have a thought.  One element common to both cases may apply more broadly: the creep factor. Following individuals too closely in public is just plain creepy. It’s offensive to the average individual. It’s what the Nader court described as “unreasonably intrusive.” It what the Onassis court meant when it said the photographer “insinuated” himself into Onassis’ life.

You may have a First Amendment right to watch me walk down the street, but you may not have the same right to follow me 24 hours a day and look over my shoulder at everything I do. Somewhere, the First Amendment right to observe and collect information butts up against the creep factor. This is why it’s hard to see the Supreme Court finding that laws banning cameras in locker rooms, dressing rooms, and bathrooms violate the First Amendment right to collect information.

Will the creep factor limit data collection on public streets too? I don’t know where to draw lines here. It’s not somewhere in the Twilight Zone but in the creepy zone that this battle between privacy and First Amendment values will be fought. The Nader and Onassis cases may not be so easily dismissed today as extraordinary remedies for high-profile individuals. Technology may give everyone who walks down the street that same high profile.

The marketer who wants to know everywhere you go, everything you do, every item you see in a store, and every link you click on the Web risks being seen as just too creepy. And if a marketer sells that information to the government, it’s a potential way around the restrictions of the Fourth Amendment, creating an additional set of dilemmas.

Walking down the street isn’t as simple as it used to be. It’s a question for a law school exam.

About the author

Robert Gellman, JD is a privacy and information policy consultant in Washington, D.C. He served for 17 years on the staff of a subcommittee in the House of Representatives. He can be reached at bob [at] bobgellman. [dot] com or visit his website at http://www.bobgellman.com/. See also his article Location Privacy: Is Privacy in Public a Contradiction in Terms?

On Dec. 6, 2011, the House Homeland Security Committee’s counterterrorism and intelligence panel held a hearing on the “Jihadist Use of Social Media,” focusing on preventing terrorism while preserving innovation. The committee assembled a panel of expert witnesses, which testified to the jihadists’ use of social media in their recruitment of aspiring terrorists, the effectiveness of said recruitment, and what the United States is doing to address this issue. The witness panel consisted of William McCants, analyst for the Center of Naval Analyses; Andrew Weisburd, director of Society for Internet Research; and Brian Jenkins, senior advisor to the president of RAND Corporation.

Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA), chair of the subcommittee, began with an opening statement in which he highlighted the committee’s recent efforts in examining threats to the U.S. homeland from around the world, specifically the operations of the Yemen al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and its high-profile media wing led by the late Anwar al-Awlaki, which produced Inspire magazine. The common theme derived from this examination was that “terrorist networks are spreading their message, recruiting sympathizers, and are connecting operationally online.”

To illustrate this point, Meehan talked about Coleen LaRose, publicly known as “Jihad Jane,” a name she used online where she became a committed jihadi, who was arrested on her return to the United States as part of a terror plot. LaRose did not receive any formal training in a terrorist camp, but in her own apartment in Montgomery County, PA, she enthusiastically posted, and commented on, YouTube videos supporting al-Qaeda, contacted other jihadis online, solicited funding, and tried to orchestrate a terror plot.

Another example Meehan cited was Jose Pimentel, a man recently arrested for preparing bombs to use in attacking targets in New York City. Prior to his November 2011 arrest, Pimentel had been active online. He ran a blog, held two YouTube accounts, and operated a Facebook profile – all dedicated to jihadi propaganda. Further, The Virginia Five were a group of young men arrested in December of 2009 in Pakistan for attempting to join militants fighting along the border with Afghanistan. They were reportedly contacted by a Taliban recruiter through YouTube after one member of the group praised an online video showing attacks on American troops. Meehan said because the internet was designed to ease communication, the United States has been unable to effectively prevent jihadi videos and messages from being spread via popular social media websites like YouTube and Facebook.

Ranking member Jackie Speier (D-CA) also made an opening statement emphasizing the power of the internet and social media as illustrated by the Arab Spring. She noted that the late al-Awlaki was known to some as the “bin Laden of the Internet” and said he used Facebook, blogs, and YouTube videos to try to recruit and develop a cadre of terrorists in the United States. She also noted that al-Awlaki used online videos to praise those who not only perpetrated violent acts against Americans, such as Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hassan, but also those who waged unsuccessful attacks, like the attempted Christmas day airplane bomber Umar Farok Abdulmutallab. Speier further noted that attempted Times Square bomber Faizal Shazad was in contact with al-Awlaki via email.

In his testimony, McCants said that most of the research on the subject is confined to discussion forums, which allow users to post comments on topics of interest. Al-Qaeda forums are heavily moderated by the administrators and the users tend to be anonymous. Participants in such forums are usually strong supporters of al-Qaeda or passive observers/analysts. Although participation in such forums may harden already established views and push individuals to action, no one is actually radicalized in these forums, McCants said. He noted that most viewers of YouTube videos containing al-Qaeda propaganda are young people drawn to them out of curiosity who then share the videos with their friends.

He also noted a significant difference between the anonymous discussion forums and sites such as Facebook: Although Facebook is a goldmine for analysts because they show the users’ connections, the social network is more difficult to penetrate than the anonymous discussion forums because a friend request from a stranger is unlikely to be answered in the affirmative. There is a concern that “because these more closed social networking sites are effective at transmitting propaganda, we may yet see the day when an al-Qaeda video is solely distributed peer-to-peer without announcement on the anonymous discussion forums, thus eluding the media and researchers but nurturing the radicalized.”

However, it is important to note that a vast majority of youth who watch and read al-Qaeda propaganda are either unaffected or choose not to act. McCants cited an anonymous online recruiter who posited that if you post al-Qaeda propaganda to all of the mainstream websites, by his reasoning, only 0.00001 percent would go out to fight for al-Qaeda and even fewer would carry out a suicide operation. Although the material distributed online may be incendiary, the vast majority of people who watch and read al-Qaeda propaganda will never act violently because of it. Therefore, rather than focus energy and manpower on closing online user accounts that celebrate and distribute al-Qaeda propaganda and removing incendiary material, McCants suggested that the federal government follow the smoke trails left behind by such online activity, focus on watching the active participants, and look for criminal behavior or attempts to connect with active militants.

Weisburd, an expert who has analyzed the YouTube accounts of al-Qaeda supporters over the course of the past two years, said that each time he looked at a new person of interest, he found that he already had data on them as a result of their being part of the same global community of extremists. He highlighted a trend of two to three degrees of separation between noted al-Qaeda supporters via their internet connections. He emphasized that the common element in terrorist media is violence; although the effects of exposure to such violence is profoundly negative, what is most important in determining if such exposure will lead to future violent behavior is the context in which the extremists experience said violence.

“The context in which extremists experience terrorist media is not merely supportive of violence – it presents violence as absolutely essential,” Weisburd said. He believes Google, operator of YouTube, has no interest in promoting violent extremism and has made some efforts to address this issue, but that says they can and should do more.

Lastly, Jenkins noted in his opening statement that all terrorist groups use the internet; however, al-Qaeda is the first to fully exploit social media for its purposes. He considers al-Qaeda a global movement that needs a global network, sees its mission as an awakening of the Muslim community, and realizes that communication is 90 percent of their struggle.  Despite the security risks that such internet participation poses, al-Qaeda chooses to communicate via videos and messages that are distributed and redistributed around the web. This sort of participation appeals to the extremist because it allows for direct participation and a feeling of being part of the movement.

Jenkins also said because U.S. counterterrorism operations have degraded al-Qaeda operations, and as such decentralized it, the terrorist group now depends on its ability to develop home-grown jihadists and encourages do-it-yourself, or DIY, terrorism. Jenkins further noted that many jihadists are attracted to the internet because they experience a validation of their anger and it provides an opportunity to plot clandestine activity; however, only a few have moved beyond the internet to seek terrorist training abroad. Despite al-Qaeda’s intense online marketing campaign, the level of terrorism is surprisingly below the pre-internet era. Jenkins attributes this failure in strategy to American Muslims’ rejection of al-Qaeda teachings, a “virtual” al-Qaeda army which has remained largely virtual, and the notion that virtual online threats have not resulted in an increase in jihadi missions, but have rather become a distraction from action in the real world.

Jenkins concluded that he does not consider such internet propaganda a real threat, but views it as a source of valuable intelligence and recommends a devotion of resources to intelligence collection, criminal prosecution, detection of plots, and apprehension of individuals, but not to shutting down the websites.

After the prepared remarks, members of the committee posed a variety of questions to the witnesses and what followed was a candid, introspective dialogue from which three main issues arose:

1.      Who is the real audience for terrorist propaganda on the internet? Are social media networks “game-changers” or is it simply a manifestation of individuals living in a virtual reality? How real is the threat of the virtual Jihadist? How do you know if and when an individual moves out of the virtual world into the real world? 

• It appears the real audience for terrorist propaganda is the extremists whose views are already established. Aspirants do not become extremists via exposure to such material on the internet; extremists seek out sites that resonate with their beliefs and reinforce their radical views.
• All the experts agreed that social media networks are not “game changers” because they do not appear to lead more people to become terrorists. Jenkins noted that the face-to-face peer pressure which plays an imperative role in the recruitment of terrorists, is missing in online interactions. Moreover, an individual’s ability to perform cannot be gauged online and most serious plots involve individuals with face-to-face, hands-on training. Further, we cannot underestimate the level of commitment involved in becoming a terrorist. Such intensity may dissuade individuals and an examination of what prevents an individual from going forward was recommended. The Virginia Five are a perfect example: These five men knew each other and decided to go to Pakistan. Weisburd further noted that a group or individuals who are part of an organized group are more likely to carry out terrorist activity and tend to be more effective than a lone individual.
• As a result, the “virtual jihadist” does not pose a significant threat at this time. Most online forum participants who engage in jihadist propaganda tend to exist and remain in the virtual world and do not transition into action in the real world. Weisburd noted that such forums acted as an “echo chamber” of sorts; however, YouTube, which is not run by al-Qaeda, is more of a concern because of its mainstream audience. The authorities have been quite efficient at finding individuals who transition from a virtual avatar to an actual jihadist and can continue to do so by following the trail of smoke and distribution of such propaganda, creating opportunities for such individuals to engage with people they believe to be active in al-Qaeda, while also probing those intentions to examine how far these individuals are willing to go. McCants concluded that it is surprising that such a fertile field produces only a small number of responders to the al-Qaeda message; they are able to connect but unable to operate attacks with the aid of social media.

2.      The role of Anwar al-Awlaki and Inspire magazine and the use of social media in the jihadist movement: What was so unique about al-Awlaki? What is the status of Inspire magazine?

• The late al-Awlaki ran Inspire Magazine, a much-discussed publication produced in English to recruit new al-Qaeda members. Al-Awlaki was unique compared to other al-Qaeda leaders because he was good at taking the core Jihadist message, synthesizing it, and speaking directly to his followers in words that they could understand. And, unlike others before him, he worked in the English language; as such, his material was accessible to a lot of people who did not speak Arabic. The logistics of running such a magazine was not an easy task, and the likelihood of its revival as it existed when al-Awlaki ran it is very low. As a result, the death of al-Awlaki was a major loss and would be a difficult leader to replace.

3.      Once jihadist material/propaganda has been identified online, how do we put out the fire? How can federal and local law enforcement use social media to control terrorism without violating privacy rights? Is there a way to use social media to influence the scope of intelligence gathering?

• It is law enforcement’s job to identify where jihadist propaganda is being distributed and by whom, to watch them carefully, and to see what they do outside of their virtual personas. The use of social media as an intelligence-gathering tool can be effective if the focus is on following and monitoring the information trail instead of taking down sites or closing user accounts. Moreover, a lot of research is focused on the content of the propaganda, but research that examines the smoke trail of propaganda and where it leads would be more useful in fighting such terrorist activity. However, such research and data is difficult to gather because it is difficult to track.

In summary, I was quite surprised that the general consensus amongst the witnesses was that the recruitment of potential terrorists using social media was not as significant a threat as one might think, especially considering the breadth of the reach of the internet. As Jenkins reiterated, despite the intense recruiting campaigns, which include targeting individuals who understand American culture and communication, al-Qaeda has been unsuccessful in its efforts.

However, this does not mean there is a lack of concern about the issue. Rather, it means this is something that requires close and attentive monitoring of trends, using social media as an intelligence gathering tool to counteract jihadist propaganda, and continuous research. Also surprising was the panel’s recommendation that the focus should not be on closing down social media sites or user accounts that distribute extremist content; instead, panelists encouraged a more observatory and stealth approach. Follow the smoke, they urged, and put out the fires.

About the author

Olubunmi Emenanjo, JD is an attorney completing her Masters degree in Bioscience Regulatory Affairs at Johns Hopkins University.  She is currently serving as a scholar research assistant with the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C.  She is studying the patent challenges of synthetic biology and the regulatory impact of synthetic biology on biomedical product development.

The Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. v. Jones, a case that addressed the use of global positioning system (GPS) tracking devices for law enforcement purposes, is hot privacy news. Almost immediately, the decision sparked numerous and sometimes conflicting comments. The issue here is whether the decision will prompt Congress to consider legislation and what that legislation might look like.

The majority opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia used a property-based approach to conclude that attaching a GPS device to a car and using the GPS to monitor the car’s movements on public streets constitutes a search or seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The narrow basis for the decision turned on the fact that the government physically occupied private property (the car) for the purpose of obtaining information.

A concurring opinion by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by three of his colleagues reached the same outcome, but Alito wanted to determine whether the car owner’s reasonable expectations of privacy were violated by the long-term monitoring of his car. Essentially, Alito thought that the majority’s property analysis was not scalable to present day surveillance issues and that an expectation of privacy standard would reach the same result without the baggage of the property-based approach.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority opinion, but she also filed a concurring opinion. She observed that physical intrusion is not always necessary for surveillance (e.g., by tracking a cell phone) and argued that how surveillance is done may affect an expectation of privacy. So in her opinion Sotomayor asked whether people reasonably expect that their movements will be recorded in a manner that allows the government to ascertain their political and religious beliefs, sexual habits, and more. She even questioned the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties. That was the holding in United States v. Miller, 425 U. S. 435, 443 (1976), a case increasingly criticized by privacy advocates as inconsistent with life today.

Former Justice John Marshall Harlan originally proposed the reasonable expectation test in a concurring opinion in Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967). Harlan’s test has two parts. First, did a person exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and, second, is that expectation one that society is prepared to recognize as “reasonable.” The reasonable expectation standard has grown in importance over the years since Katz. Many criticize it because of its vagueness and the ability of expectations to change with technology and other developments. Alito noted some of the problems with the expectation standard, including a degree of circularity and confusion by judges who apply their own expectations rather than those of a “reasonable person.” Alito suggested rather directly that legislation might be the best way to resolve the uncertainties of the expectation standard.

With this as background, my starting point is Alito’s invitation for a legislative solution. Arguably, Congress could promptly and efficiently set surveillance standards by statute. It would take the courts years to do the same through litigation. What might legislation look like?

Before I answer that question, I note that there is precedent of sorts. When the Court in Katz held that wiretapping was a search, it presented the same need for rules and procedures governing wiretapping now that the Fourth Amendment applied. What is noteworthy here is that Katz overruled Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928), a previous decision that held that wiretapping without judicial approval did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Following Olmstead, Congress tried for forty years to enact a wiretapping law but was unable to reach consensus.

The politics of wiretapping essentially pitted the police (who benefitted from the regulation-less status quo) against those who wanted more controls over wiretapping. Katz changed the political dynamic. Now both sides had a substantial interest in defining rules. That allowed Congress to pass Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (also known as the Wiretap Act) defining the conditions and circumstances of communications interceptions. For a nice summary of the protracted legislative wars over wiretapping, see chapter 5 of Legislating Privacy by Priscilla M. Regan. Location privacy by the private sector has already been the subject of proposed legislation in the current session of Congress, but Alito’s invitation opens a whole new front by adding public sector activities to the mix.

The first question for GPS legislation is the scope of the bill. What exactly should the bill cover? A narrow bill addressing use of a GPS by police would be easier to draft and enact, but it would not help much. After all, as both Sotomayor and Alito pointed out, many other surveillance techniques present the same issues. Should a bill also regulate the use of cameras on the roads? What about cameras now used elsewhere, such as in garages, stores, schools, and public buildings? Other surveillance technologies include satellites, aerial pictometry and drones. What do we do in the near future when all cars will likely have transponders and broadcast their location for traffic control and other purposes? Cars equipped with OnStar already have transponders, making this a live issue. We also have highway toll records of all sorts.

We haven’t exhausted this scope issue yet. We could regulate face recognition technology for its location-tracking capabilities. We could seek to regulate location tracking by any means rather than naming specific technologies, including old-fashioned shoe leather police surveillance. The concerns expressed by at least five members of the Court extended to surveillance in general and not just to GPS tracking.

In fact, location tracking is already in play in proposals to reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). For more, see the Digital Due Process coalition. One of the coalition’s proposed standards for ECPA would regulate the availability of location information from cell phones by requiring warrants based on probable cause. Not surprisingly, law enforcement has not embraced the idea, and changes to ECPA do not seem likely in the near future.

If we take the easier path by regulating GPS only, we run the risk of duplicating the experience of ECPA, a law that regulated new technology a bit ahead of its time. ECPA started to become obsolete before the ink dried, and, in 25 years since its passage, the law has not had a major overhaul. If a law tightly regulates use of GPS, the police will switch to unregulated methods. Then there’s the problem that separate laws for each surveillance technology would likely have different standards and create all kinds of inconsistencies.

However, taking a broad bite at the issue will produce much more substantial opposition. Regulate the use of satellites and drones if you like, but expect a visit from national defense and national security agencies demanding a full exemption. Regulate cameras, but expect opposition from camera manufacturers, from cities making money from red light and speed cameras, and from others who rely on the existing policy void to use cameras as they see fit. Regulate car transponders, but expect auto manufacturers, car rental companies, and traffic regulators to speak up. Regulate location information in general, but expect opposition from all of the above and from police everywhere.

We are not done with scope issues. Who will the law regulate? A federal law can tell federal agencies and federal law enforcement how to operate. However, directing state (and local) governments in the same way is not a given. If there were a Supreme Court ruling that a particular procedure were constitutionally required, then the requirement would apply to the states as well. For example, the requirement for a Miranda warning for criminal suspects is constitutionally based and applies to the states. However, the federal wiretapping statute gets its jurisdiction from congressional power to regulate interstate commerce and not directly from the Fourth Amendment.

Depending on what technology the bill regulates, there may or may not be an interstate commerce activity that can be regulated. A GPS device uses federal satellites, which might provide federal jurisdiction. If local police conduct surveillance by using state highway toll facilities on local roads, by using a license plate reader, by erecting cameras located in local communities, or by following individuals on the streets, a federal jurisdictional hook might not be so easy to find. It’s beyond the scope of this post to delve into complex jurisdictional issues, but here’s a link to a paper by the American Prosecutors Research Institute that considers some of the state-federal jurisdictional aspects of ECPA. It is not simple.

Even if federal jurisdiction over state activities can be found, it is not necessarily easy to solve the political problems that the exercise of that jurisdiction creates. Imagine how a Member of Congress will react to a bill knowing that every local police officer in his state or district opposes the proposal.

So far, we’ve covered two scope issues, both of which present difficult substantive and political choices. We haven’t reached the policy questions of how to regulate surveillance activities covered by the new rules. Both Alito and Sotomayor raised the length of surveillance and the severity of the offense as possible factors for determining whether an expectation of privacy has been breached. It is not hard to envision high-profile crimes (think child abduction and terrorism) inducing elected officials to vote for broad exceptions to procedural requirements. Once you start down the exception route, other issue activists (drunk driving, domestic violence, hate crimes) will want one, too.

Further, every surveillance activity may not require a probable cause warrant. ECPA – and the USA PATRIOT Act – have a variety of different standards and procedures governing government access to records, not all of which call for probable cause. Some existing standards are so weak as to be nearly meaningless. A surveillance law passed through the political process may result in a similarly broad spectrum of rules depending on the scope of the surveillance regulatory bill.

Then there is the question of what to do when the police fail to comply with a requirement for judicial oversight or other procedure. Given the political controversies surrounding the existing exclusionary rule – itself a welter of complex rules and exceptions – it cannot be assumed that the remedy for breach of legislated surveillance procedures will be exclusion of evidence.

We have by no means exhausted the issues that a surveillance regulatory bill would raise, but it should be clear that a legislative solution will not be simple. It is possible that the same dynamic that produced federal wiretapping legislation immediately following Katz could recur today. If the police feel that the uncertainty of the Jones decision makes it worthwhile cutting a deal with the civil liberties community, then the political problems may find a resolution. However, it is possible that law enforcement may see the risk as greater than the reward. Civil libertarians may prefer the courts to legislation if the political process is likely to produce a mushy, exception-laden bill. Congress may prefer to avoid the issue and its difficult votes.

Just to make it all harder, it may accomplish little to control public sector use of surveillance while similar private sector activities remain largely unrestricted.

Fasten your seatbelts on this issue. It’s going to be a long and bumpy ride.
About the Author

Robert Gellman, JD is a privacy and information policy consultant in Washington, D.C. He served for 17 years on the staff of a subcommittee in the House of Representatives. He can be reached at bob [at] bobgellman. [dot] com or visit his website at http://www.bobgellman.com/. See also his article Location Privacy: Is Privacy in Public a Contradiction in Terms?

Governor Jim Geringer is Director of Policy at the Environmental Systems Research Institute, which focuses on educating business and government on using geospatial technology for place based decisions.  His career has involved a myriad of responsibilities, ranging from the Governor of Wyoming, to his current role where he helps decisionmakers tap into the diverse applications of GIS.  Governor Geringer sat down with the Science and Technology Innovation Program to discuss his perspective on the future of this field, the first part of which appears below.

Governor Geringer, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.  To begin, you’re bringing multiple perspectives to bear when you comment on GIS, social media, and related issues: you’ve been both in the private sector and government.  From your role as Governor of Wyoming, what types of information were you looking for in a crisis and how do these new data flows fit?

Preparation is an important key: you can make sure the maps are in a standardized format that you know what and who you can rely on.  But, assuming a crisis has already happened, we know the Internet is going to be up and running, as it stayed up in Haiti.  People on Twitter can offer you situational awareness, like getting a phone call from someone on the scene.  In the best of circumstances it can be like what FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate described when using Twitter after the San Bruno gas explosion: he found out more from using social media than any other resource.

What’s stopping more comprehensive incorporation of these tools?

There needs to be a way to evaluate all the information coming in.  The problem isn’t a lack of data, it’s too much: what do you take seriously?  How do you vet the information?  I would say that anyone who is an incident commander on the ground needs to develop a plan and have infrastructure prepared to deal with these challenges: who will you call and what can they do depending on your needs?  We’re past the point where total on-the-scene control is possible anymore: there will be people on Twitter and Facebook commenting whether you like it or not.

You made a comment during the Liability and Reliability panel discussion.  I’m paraphrasing, but the thrust was that as much as it’s good to be aware of the potential legal liabilities, the responsibility of people in government is to figure out how to say yes, not reasons to say no.  For a decision-maker who’s intrigued about these technical solutions and wanting to know how to get to “yes”, what would you recommend?

A great place to start can be learning about some of the wonderful work that many volunteer technology communities (VTCs) are spearheading.  Ushahidi is doing remarkable work in Liberia; GISCorps has been one of the few organizations to continue to call attention to Haiti even after it dropped out of headlines.  Focus on those that can produce high quality work and also feature professional messaging.  Again, you’re going to be dealing with comments from all sides, so you have to partner with people prepared for criticism as well.  We can’t limit ourselves by fixating on what can go wrong.  Protecting yourself from liability is important, but it’s your responsibility to help, so figure out how you can do it.

From the flipside, how do you think people with the technical tools can better approach decision-makers to communicate their value?

The most common mistake I see is selling the technical tool and not understanding the problems the decision-maker is faced with.  When you take the time to understand them and what they’re faced with, your approach can improve.  You’re not walking into a meeting expecting them to buy a $2 million satellite.  Instead, it becomes, here’s one specific problem you have, and here’s how we can offer a solution through technology.  Meet them where they are, not where you are.  When they see how what you’re offering can help, you can build the relationship.

Contributor Zachary Bastian

Zachary Bastian is a third year student at George Washington University Law School.  Before joining the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, he worked in the United States Senate studying policy and supporting the work of personal and subcommittee offices.  His interests include intellectual property, disaster mitigation and recovery, and leveraging technology to support better government.

As the world tries to keep up to speed with the rapid pace of technological change, we can’t help but wonder how these scientific advances are changing the way science itself is done. Walls seem to be coming down everywhere as the internet facilitates communication and transfer of information; new communication technologies allow for the average citizen to participate in extensive data collection and sharing. The buzz seems to be around crowdsourcing and social media. Citizen-based science, participatory sensing, and volunteered geographic information (VGI) are all examples of crowdsourcing: using large-scale labor markets to get work done. Citizen-based science is any scientific work, such as data collection, that can be done by those without formal scientific or technical training; participatory sensing uses large labor markets of citizens as sensors for the world around them, and can make use of smartphones and other mobile sensing devices. Volunteered geographic information usually involves qualitative observations from average citizens about the physical observations made about a particular place that could go to constructing a contributor-based map or database. This work can be as simple as taking pictures, writing up a short description of what you see, and uploading it onto a website, or much more complex and specialized tasks, such as using software to bend protein structures to contribute to immense databases (Folding@Home).

Understanding the potential of tapping into these infinitely large labor markets is the goal of Professor David Alan Grier of the George Washington University Elliot School of International Affairs. I visited Professor Grier in his office, where we discussed the future of crowdsourcing technologies and their potential place in the ever-changing scientific community. He began by pointing out how crowdsourced information has been used since the 1850s. Grier highlighted a personal favorite sitting on his bookshelf: a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project that asked hundreds of people to go out and calculate mathematic equations by hand, resulting in a multi-volume work containing everything from logarithmic tables to beta functions.

So where does the change come in? Can citizens provide observations or information that is useful to the scientific community? Professor Grier seems to believe so. Yet the focus should not be on whether or not that information is out there. One critical challenge is in developing a process where the information needed for science is broken down into smaller steps that are manageable by individuals who need not understand the inner workings of an entire scientific theory. The greatest potential of these volunteer labor markets lies in breaking down these steps into manageable micro-tasks and using them to gather data. Professor Grier simplified it, “setting up each step requires a knowledge and understanding of the entire process, but that is not to say that the people within those steps cannot see patterns that add to the framework.”

One of the obvious concerns, however, is guaranteeing the quality and usefulness of this information. To this end, Professor Grier points out two approaches. The Christmas Bird Count, for example, is often cited as an extremely successful case of using crowdsourced data, where amateur bird watchers produced extremely high quality information. The Bird Count is possible due to the extensive body of knowledge available to amateur bird watchers, who already have a grasp of fairly technical information compiled by specialists. The second approach is based on what was mentioned earlier, the ability to successfully breakdown scientific data gathering processes into parts that can be managed by those who do not have a complete understanding of the entire framework.

This latter approach is where Professor Grier finds the most potential for new communication technologies. He specifically mentions the experience of the relief effort after the earthquake in Haiti on January 12^th, 2010. The advantage in using new communication technologies such as Twitter and SMS messaging is their ability to set up a quick infrastructure for information sharing. Moreover, crowdsourced labor was used in a process to translate, decode, and categorize SMS messages received by digital volunteer groups, such as Mission 4636, which constituted a short number that people could send messages to with their location and needs for relief. The developers tapped into the expat Haitian and Francophone African populations in order to translate over 100,000 messages from the Haitian Creole. Intelligible messages were then sent back to a base in California where they were categorized and sent to the relief organizations. Professor Grier points out that people want to volunteer after a disaster because they get a sense of doing something good for the world. But what can incentivize people to participate in scientific activities when they feel they aren’t qualified to do so?

The main challenge comes in breaking down that barrier between the scientists and the average citizen. Professor Grier emphasizes the difficulty scientists face in deciding “when lowering that barrier is a sign of weakness, and when it indicates strength on the part of the scientific community.” This lies mostly in maintaining the balance between making sure the right incentives are in place to guarantee not only participation, but quality information on the part of participants, and making sure scientists are acceptant of this information and actually find it useful. Here we see great potential for the integration of these crowdsourced projects with education. High school teachers are usually very interested in incorporating these types of information gathering into their curricula: it gives them a sense of prestige as well as something to get their students excited about.

Finally, technological advances have made extremely complex sensors available at the palm of our hands. We have all been told not to underestimate the power of a smartphone, but they represent a truly remarkable way to get science working for scientists, using the contributions of the everyday citizen. Professor Grier attempts to instill his students with the notion that these technologies are opening the way for a new group of scientists, who think about their data collection processes in a much more dynamic way, making room for increased participation and more sources of data.

Luisa Castellanos is a Research Assistant in the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in Washington, D.C. Luisa is also a junior at Georgetown University pursuing a B.S. in Foreign Service in Science, Technology and International Affairs with a concentration in Energy and Environment. She is a native of Brazil, and is interested in issues of energy security and renewables, as well as using new means of communication to shape science and technology policy.

2011 Social Media in Emergency Management Camp Report

Watch the live webcast on Thursday, November 10th at 8:30—10:00 AM  EST

By harnessing the collective power of citizens and engaging communities in their own response and recovery, social media have the power to revolutionize emergency management. Yet, many challenges—including guidelines for use by response agencies, demonstration of value, and characterization of reliability—must be addressed if the potential of social media is to be fully realized in emergency response and relief efforts in the United States.

Please join us on November 10th for this panel and roundtable discussion, which will be chaired by Dr. Clarence Wardell of CNA and will feature findings from the report, “2011 Social Media + Emergency Management Camp: Transforming the Response Enterprise.” Panelists from the emergency management community, the private sector, government, and the digital volunteer community will discuss the report and offer policy and research recommendations for moving forward with the adoption, integration, and practice of social media in emergency management.

Twitter: To follow the event on Twitter or to ask questions of the panelists use the hashtag: #SMEM11

Location: 5th Floor Board Room, Woodrow Wilson Center, Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, D.C.

Panelists:

• Dr. Clarence Wardell, Research Analyst, CNA Safety & Security (Moderator)
• Dr. Karen Smilowitz, Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, Northwestern University
• Kim Stephens, Author of iDisaster 2.0 Blog and ABT Associates, Inc.
• Pascal Schuback, Emergency Management Program Coordinator, King County Office of Emergency Management and Core Member, CrisisCommons
• Rachel Racusen, Director of Public Affairs at FEMA
• Wendy Harman, Director, Social Strategy, American Red Cross

Co-hosts:

• Science and Technology Innovation Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center
• CNA Safety & Security
• CrisisCommons, and SMEM Initiative

This event is open to the public. For a PDF copy of the report when it is published (Nov 10, 2011),  for a linked to the archived video webcast (after Nov 10th), and for directions to the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, click here.

Dr. Brown began by outlining the UK and EU legal frameworks on communications.  The UK’s Communications Act of 2003 declares that the Office of Communications (OFCOM) shall “further the interests” of both citizens and consumers “by promoting competition.”   The relevant section in the Treaty on the European Union guarantees “fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,” as well as the “constitutional traditions common to the Member States.”  The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights declares that all are guaranteed “respect for his private…communications,” “protection of personal data,” and “freedom of expression.”

These protections are strong.  Government response in a crisis can function differently.  Users of popular services such as Twitter, Facebook, and BlackBerry Messaging were caught coordinating looting via their networks.  In the aftermath of this disturbing behavior, Prime Minister Gordon Brown made comments indicating he was considering shutting down some services in a crisis “to stop people communicating…when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.”  But, as Dr. Brown pointed out, the Prime Minister has vocally supported revolutionary movements in the Middle East using social media.  To date, the UK government has not sought any additional authority to close down social media networks.

Dr. Brown also commented on issues of data privacy.  He cited a statement by Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, encouraging UK officials to enforce “legislation on the confidentiality of communications” in order to permit quick response to evolving challenges to protection of privacy and personal data.  This admonition was in response to a case where a UK company, Phorm, was discovered examining internet users’ activity without their consent in order to produce targeted advertisements.  Use of this type of data is not just limited to private companies: UK police have protested against the standing policy in which Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may not retain usage information beyond the point it is needed for business purposes.  This typically ends up being three months, and as Dr. Brown pointed out, 70% of all law enforcement data requests take place within this timeframe, possibly implying that their concerns on this policy are overblown.  This issue is relevant domestically, as Google disclosed that government requests of user info have risen 70% in the last year.

This event provided a broad overview of the unique ways the UK and EU have approached issues of social networking, surveillance and data privacy.  In an environment where commerce and ideas frequently cross borders, it is important to not simply focus on domestic developments, but to examine how people approach electronic challenges worldwide.

To view the webpage for this event, including Dr. Brown’s presentation and archived video, click here.

Contributor Zachary Bastian

Zachary Bastian is a third year student at George Washington University Law School.  Before joining the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, he worked in the United States Senate studying policy and supporting the work of personal and subcommittee offices.  His interests include intellectual property, disaster mitigation and recovery, and leveraging technology to support better government.