After the Tragedy in Boston, More Government Surveillance is Not the AnswerCindy Cohn and Trevor Timm First, the familiar attempt to throw privacy out the window: The Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg led the way last week, saying that, despite privacy concerns, our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change. NYPD chief Ray Kelly echoed Bloomberg, saying, I think the privacy issue has really been taken off the table, in reference to surveillance after the bombings in Boston. Bloomberg said terrorists want to take away our freedoms, yet his solution seems to be the government should take our freedoms away first. This is folly, and the very reduction of privacy and freedom is what could give victory to terrorism. In an excellent and poignant column immediately after the bombing, security expert Bruce Schneier wrote in The Atlantic about the reaction we all should have: When we react from fear, when we change our laws and policies to make our country less open, the terrorists succeed, even if their attacks fail. He continued: theres one thing we can do to render terrorism ineffective: Refuse to be terrorized. To Schneiers point, the risk of terrorism is on the decline and has been since the 1970s, according to the Global Terrorism Database. And a report by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) showed the risk of Americans being killed in terrorism attacks that occur worldwide is exceedingly low. Of the 13,288 people killed by terrorist attacks in 2011, 17 were private U.S. citizens.001 percent. In fact, you are far more likely to be struck by lightningthan be killed by a terrorist. While most of these programs are still tremendously secret, the information we do have indicates that they have been abused many times. The NYPD, for instance, has been widely criticized for its post-9/11 pervasive surveillance. Read the Associated Press Pulitzer Prize winning series for more. Lets focus on just two areas that the Boston bombing brought to the forefront. Government Surveillance Cameras First, do the facts support a call for increased government surveillance cameras? No, they do not. Theres certainly been an epidemic of media support for cameras in the aftermath of the Boston attack. We suspect that companies selling cameras are already lining up outside the doors of state and municipal officials hoping to snare some tax dollars from panicky officials. But as many others have pointed out, it is important to remember, despite the fact that the bombers were surrounded by dozens of cameras, the cameras did not prevent the bombing. This is consistent with what has occurred in other such attacks, including the attacks in the subway in camera-happy London. Cameras were quite helpful, along with other evidence including an eye-witnesses, in identifying the suspects after the fact. But importantly, the footage that identified the suspects didnt come from government cameras it came from private ones, volunteered from businesses and individuals, and provided more than enough to identify two people in days. Why? Private cameras provide an informal check on government misuse. In a case like the Boston Marathon bombing, people wanted to help the government solve the heinous crime. It wasnt hard for the government to collect terabytes of volunteered information. Yet private entities might be much more reticent to volunteer their photos and videos in the case where the government was overreaching or oppressive. If the authorities still want those private photos and videos, they can seek it through legal process, but allowing people to decide in the first instance when to share their private videos and photos with the government can serve as an important check on governmental overreach. Finally, unless there is an emergency, private photos and videos usually remain in private hands, even if sometimes publicly available on private websites. Government surveillance footage is increasingly being organized and combined with other government information and used in ways that we often have no knowledge of, much less control over. One of EFFs longstanding concerns with untargeted, automatic government collection of information about people is the secondary uses. That is, the government desires to keep, correlate and analyze data about nonsuspect, innocent Americanswhether its surveillance cameras in public places, license plate readers or warrantless wiretappingjust in case you fall under criminal suspicion. Private photos and videos can also be collected and collated, of course, but the systemic governmental systems are more worrisome, and likely create more of a chilling effect on Americans in their exercise of their rights to free speech, than disparate, private photos and videos. Cell Phone Tracking Second example: the police use of cellphone tracking to follow the car hijacked by the Boston suspects. The owner of the car had left his cell phone in it after the hijacking and, with the owners permission, the police used it to locate the car. Once again, no additional police powers were needed. The private citizen, the carjacking victim said he gave the police permission to locate his phone, something that is not surprising given the situation. But even if the police were seeking to locate the suspects cell phones, this should not have been a problem. Even assuming they did not have enough information initially, once the carjacking victim had contacted the authorities, there was probably cause for a warrant due to the theft of the vehicle anddue to the suspects confession to the victimthe MIT murder and bombing. EFF has long been saying that the Fourth Amendment should require the police to get a warrant when tracking cellphones, as well as pushing for legislation that would formalize this. Requiring the government to follow the warrant rules in seeking cell phone locations wouldnt have hurt the Boston investigation, but it would protect many, many people. Last year alone, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies requested cell phone data a shocking 1.3 million times. Much of that time, it was location data without a warrant. In emergency situations like Boston its important for police to act quickly, but in the course of normal investigations the oversight and limits provided by the warrant requirement are just as paramount. The capture of the Boston suspect was made possible by old-fashioned police work and the willingness of the public to help in such a trying time. Technology surely assisted in this effort, but its important to note where it was and was not helpful, and to ensure that we dont let the few dramatic situations lead us to downgrade our own privacy in everyday law enforcement situations. For the latest information on protecting your privacy, please visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation. linkwithin_text=Related Articles: 