Connecting the dots? A look at what the Department of Homeland Security could know about you

March 11, 2010 by Elizabeth Schiffman and Katie Glueck  
Filed under News and Analysis, Washington Privacy & Civil Liberties Stories

WASHINGTON – Since its inception in the wake of 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security has taken heat from across the political spectrum. Some accuse the department of violating civil liberties and sanctioning invasive programs. Others fault DHS for security breaches like failing to “connect the dots” during the Christmas Day airplane bombing attempt.

Medill News Service caught up with two Washington experts—one who specializes in privacy; one who focuses on homeland security—to get their take on how DHS measures up in protecting civil liberties while securing the country.

Medill News Service: How does DHS’s approach to privacy under the Obama administration compare to the approach taken by DHS under the Bush administration?

Marc Rotenberg, executive director, the Electronic Privacy and Information Center, a privacy and civil liberties advocacy group:

DHS has done a poor job with privacy in comparison with the last several DHS privacy offices. It hasn’t taken its mandate seriously. This is the third DHS privacy office we’ve worked with, and it has done the least. It’s certainly true that many battles we initially fought were against the Bush administration, but what’s disappointing is, you don’t see any willingness at DHS today to discontinue programs from the Bush administration, and you also see them doing new [problematic] things.

Jena Baker McNeill, a homeland security policy analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation:

There haven’t been major shifts. I think they take it equally seriously [under the Obama administration]. Privacy has to be a part of every policy—the American people demand that—and I think they do that. DHS has matured a great deal from its inception. It still has room to grow but overall, it’s effective.

MNS: Which aspects of DHS, if any, do you find problematic?

McNeill: One of the weaknesses of DHS is its relationship with Congress. Congressional oversight remains scattered, which makes the working relationship scattered, confusing and conflicting. My biggest problem with the Transportation Security Administration [which implements many DHS programs] is that whenever there’s a terrorist attack or threat of an attack, their tendency is to go for a knee-jerk response, which inevitably causes more trouble at the screening line.

It’s not necessarily a privacy issue for me, although they can go too far. But they’ll put [new policies] out there to make everyone feel good, but that distracts from other security measures. We should be doing stuff that stops terrorists from getting to the airport in the first place.

Rotenberg: Right now, we’re focused on three DHS programs.

First, we think it’s a mistake to go forward with body scanners. One can really say, ‘My goodness, what is this administration doing?’ They said they were going to be different from the Bush administration, but they want to subject air travelers to body scanners that [electronically render them] naked. We have a real campaign to try to suspend further deployment, and we’re now at a stage where we can have a genuine public debate.

McNeill: I don’t think body scanners are a privacy issue, per se, I just think it’s a cost issue—do we need them? I don’t necessarily think it’s a privacy problem, it’s just more of a problem from the perspective of, ‘Are they really going to be effective?’ We have tax dollars at stake and I don’t think these scanners are overly useful when compared to other programs like information sharing and intelligence.

Rotenberg: We’re also looking at fusion centers, which are coordinated by the DHS, and the FBI is also involved. These are open-ended data bases that collect lots and lots of information about people, and can be used for a wide variety of purposes. The government argues that it can use data to detect terrorist planning, but it seems like this is more for criminal investigations and for keeping track of people. As a practical matter, to collect the data the federal government had to force states to roll back privacy safeguards.

Finally, we’re concerned about camera systems, which are a limitless type of surveillance. DHS tried to get to this a few years ago when they developed reasonably good guidelines, but then proceeded to give out money without caring whether those guidelines were being followed.

McNeill: It’s within the rights of cities to conduct surveillance. It depends on the specific city, but the cameras themselves aren’t necessarily bad. You probably have more surveillance on you from your local bank. We need to make sure that we’re putting place policies that we need, and as long as they don’t violate the Constitution and civil liberties, they should be there. A lot of times, outside organizations will say something is a privacy violation when it’s not, and sometimes DHS gets scared off by that.

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