Final Salvoes

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. -- Amendment IV, U.S. Constitution

Do you regard your Internet passwords as among your "effects?" I do. I would regard anyone who tries to compromise one of them as a burglar, to be resisted by any means necessary. I would insist he be prosecuted even for an unsuccessful attempt.

Apparently, the federal government differs with me:

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.

If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.

"I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We push back."

A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'"

Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.

A Microsoft spokesperson would not say whether the company has received such requests from the government. But when asked whether Microsoft would divulge passwords, salts, or algorithms, the spokesperson replied: "No, we don't, and we can't see a circumstance in which we would provide it."

Google also declined to disclose whether it had received requests for those types of data. But a spokesperson said the company has "never" turned over a user's encrypted password, and that it has a legal team that frequently pushes back against requests that are fishing expeditions or are otherwise problematic. "We take the privacy and security of our users very seriously," the spokesperson said.

Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, AOL, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast did not respond to queries about whether they have received requests for users' passwords and how they would respond to them.

If the major Internet service providers are resisting successfully, I applaud, and encourage them to keep up the good fight. But the federal government is relentless. Refuse it once, and it comes back a second time, with incentives in hand. Refuse it again, and it comes back a third time, usually with a fistful of threats.

We are looking at the extinction of all privacy in communications.

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This massive invasion of Americans' paltry remaining privacy is, of course, being argued for on the grounds of "national security."

I wrote just a few weeks ago about the pernicious nature of "national security" laws and institutions. In particular:

    For purposes of this subsection, the term "transnational threat" means the following:

    (A) Any transnational activity (including international terrorism, narcotics trafficking, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the delivery systems for such weapons, and organized crime) that threatens the national security of the United States.
    (B) Any individual or group that engages in an activity referred to in subparagraph (A).

[Sections 101.i.5 (A), (B)]

Note that the enumerated "transnational threats" are not all the "transnational threats." More strikingly, though the terms "national security" and "national security interests" occur innumerable times in the text of the Act, the "national security" and "national security interests" of the United States are never defined.

Liberty's Torch not being a terribly popular site, I didn't expect to stimulate a torches-and-pitchforks charge up the hill of our Imperial City. I got far less than that: a bare handful of persons read the piece and only two bothered to comment.

I can't imagine why. Isn't this rather important? Will it become important, now that your online hijinks are threatened by federal snoopery?

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The "security state" isn't terribly new. It goes back at least to 1947. In the sixty-six years since then, the encroachments of the federal government on the previously unassailable rights of Americans have advanced steadily, without a single setback.

Hearken to William Pitt, in his heyday known as the Great Commoner:

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

"National security" has been the "necessity" of our era. Spies? Terrorists? Persons making off with our precious bodily fluids? Clearly we must erect a regime of infinite power, authorized to know everything, to go everywhere, and to detain and interrogate anyone, on the merest hint of a threat. No one is above suspicion! Rights? Bah! Don't you know there's a war on?

The irony embedded in the thing is so tremendous that I'm almost embarrassed to note that in no sense, by no one's definition of the critical terms, is our nation "secure:"

• Enemy agents penetrate our borders with ease.
• Enemy agents steal our military and technological secrets with impunity.
• So do the agents of some of our allies.
• The "security rules" imposed upon most federal contractors are a great help to such agents: They tell them how to identify valuable materials and secrets, where they're stored when not in use, and what sort of job to pursue to gain unrestricted access to them.
• Several organs of our federal government even collaborate with the nations that dispatch such agents to steal from us.

Pretty bad, eh? But the Ace kicker is this: The men who control the security agencies are aware of all of it, and are essentially untroubled by it.

How do I know? Well, let's say I have my reasons. But for confirmation, you need only reflect on this: despite the massive failure of the security state to achieve even the least of its overt objectives, there have been no changes in its key provisions or methods since it was first established.

Let that sink in for a moment.

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"When men fall for some piece of vicious insanity, with no way to make it work and no reason to explain their choice -- it's because they have a reason they do not wish to tell." [Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged]

I expect it won't be long before the FBI approaches Google or Microsoft with "an offer you can't refuse." The rationale will be that the feds are absolutely positive that one of the target company's subscribers is a terrorist, but they can't be certain which one without being enabled to monitor every byte of every subscriber's Internet activity. Should the target refuse to comply, it will develop that some obscure provision of the National Security Act empowers the feds to take over the entire company and run it as they please. Alternately, a federal charge of some sort could be leveled against the top officers of the company. Remember, "the process is the punishment:" even a successful defense against such a charge can cost millions of dollars and terminally disrupt one's life.

Will a terrorist be discovered in this manner? Will a destructive act be forestalled? The feds won't be overly concerned with that. Nor will they be much interested in withdrawing their antennae from your online frolics.

Only two days ago, I wrote that:

...the subjugation of a free people -- their conversion from citizens to subjects -- requires that the State assume unchallenged authority over three things: communications, education, and weaponry. The latter two are now firmly in the State's hands; only the first remains largely unfettered.

That exception won't last much longer.

UPDATE: Scott Chaffin offers a technological approach to conserving at least some of our Internet privacy.