DOD Monitoring of Students Extended to Email
The Department of Defense monitored e-mail messages from college students who were planning protests against the war in Iraq and against the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy against gay and lesbian members of the armed forces, according to surveillance reports released last month. While the department had previously acknowledged monitoring protests on campuses as national-security threats, it was not until recently that evidence surfaced showing that the department was also monitoring e-mail communications that were submitted by campus sources.
Sivacracy [http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/] has extensive quotes [link to http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/archives/003239.html no longer works] of the paywalled original at the Chronicle of Higher Education.
This is of course, the problem with domestic surveillance programs. In the absence of serious and observed terrorist activity, they degrade into monitoring of lawful, Constitutionally protected speech.
(Bruce Schneier pointed out that the always-insightful Helen Nissenbaum has a law review article on Privacy as Contextual Integrity, which I think is an interesting approach.)
Photo: “Is it troubling that my friend is a peeping tom?” by Kate at yr own risk.
Adam — apologies for an unrelated comment to this post, I couldnt find your email on the blog site and Im too lazy to go google you. Im an independent podcast-journalist preparing a report related to Choice First and their record… please contact me if you’re at all willing to talk via phone or skype on for a 20 minute podcast on this topic.