US judge strikes blow for internet privacy

Net Results: In a ruling that helped define the concept of internet privacy internationally, a New York state judge ruled last year that the US government could not force internet service providers to hand over customer records by using terrorism as the excuse for needing the data.

The Bush administration is appealing the ruling, which had little to do with terrorism per se, but rather the secretive way in which such information was requested.

Usually such evidence-gathering on an individual requires a search warrant, goes through specified channels and is public knowledge after the fact. But under enhanced powers granted to investigators in the US Patriot Act (passed hurriedly in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks), data can be requested without investigators having to give any reason why.

But the secrecy goes further - extending to the internet service provider (ISP) itself, which cannot reveal under federal law that it even has received the formal document, known as a "national security letter" (NSL), demanding the data.

Because companies (or anyone else receiving one) are barred from disclosing to anyone - including an attorney - that they have received an NSL, they cannot challenge the letter in court.

The original case, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a (still unnamed) ISP, hinged on this aspect of the letters, which the ACLU argued deprived Americans of a key constitutional right to know why evidence was being gathered and to a right of appeal.

So secretive are NSLs that it took weeks for the ACLU to figure out an agreeable way to bring the case at all without disclosing any aspect of the NSL, or who was involved or why. The initial filing was made under court seal.

The bizarre aspect of the Bush administration appeal is that it is objecting to the fact that the first case was ever heard and claiming the subsequent ruling should be thrown out, because the client company should never have disclosed the NSL in the first place to lawyers and the ACLU, and therefore the case should not have taken place.

Yet this of course is the reason the case was brought in the first place. The ACLU argued successfully that it was unconstitutional not to allow a challenge to be brought against a search for documents and data.

The appeal court challenge from the Bush administration comes just as it is also asking Congress to renew the Patriot Act and expand the powers of FBI agents to conduct searches for documents without ever having to resort to troublesome features of democracies such as judges or juries.

That the current US administration wishes to extend its powers to conduct the kinds of secretive searches that it condemns "axis of evil" countries for is more of the same topsy-turvy logic shown in the appeal case. It is stretching credulity to ask citizens, as well as the world's nations, to believe that the US government knows what is best for us all, and to allow it to behave undemocratically in the name of preserving and promoting democracy.

Meanwhile in other upside-down happenings, how about the case in the US where encryption was used not to protect files from being accessed by the wrong people, but to make them unreadable to the very people they belong to, who were then held to ransom?

Last week a security firm in California reported a case where a company had its computer files encrypted after viewing an infected website that uploaded malicious encryption software to the firm's PCs. A ransom note was then sent asking for a payment before the files would be decrypted.

That the hacker only demanded $200 (€162) didn't give much comfort to security experts who dubbed the new type of security exploit "ransomware".

Unfortunately for the thrifty hacker,the security firm was able to decrypt the files for the client so no ransom was paid. But experts expect this new type of exploit to become more advanced and malicious with the passage of time.

Finally, I'd like to pay tribute to Aileen McKeogh, one of this country's most energetic, enthusiastic and tireless proponents of digital media. I was shocked to learn on the weekend that she had died at a youthful 52. McKeogh was a talented artist and sculptor and former Fulbright scholar, who headed the School of Creative Arts at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (DLIADT).

Under her direction many new programmes were established or expanded in her much-loved areas of digital arts including film and animation. Before that, she set up Arthouse, the ill-fated digital arts centre in Temple Bar that she bravely pioneered in the face of much opposition especially from her own arts community, and tried to steer towards success despite the shameful dearth of State funding and restrictive policies that did not allow most forms of sponsorship - leaving the centre reliant on raising funds through teaching classes (and then the centre was subjected to sniping for doing this).

I crossed paths with Aileen several times, in a few interviews in her Arthouse days then again later at DLIADT, where she was delighted to be back working with students (she was at the National College of Art and Design prior to Arthouse), driving new courses and programmes, and also doing some of her own artwork again. I last saw her about a year ago when she was excited about a scheme to provide incubator space for young digital media companies at DLIADT.

In my years of writing about technology I have met few people in Ireland so passionate about digital arts and media, supportive of artists, animators and film-makers, and excited about the possibilities for Irish students and young companies in these areas.

Her energy and her vision are a sad loss.

klillington@irish-times.ie weblog: http://weblog. techno-culture.com