How Charter and the federal government monitor you
June 15, 2008 4:29 pm Doublespeak, Legal, TechnicalI had the most interesting conversation with a Charter employee on Thursday. A couple of weeks ago I was speaking with Carla Conner, who is Charter’s customer care advocate for government issues. After explaining my concerns, a task made difficult by her lack of technical background, I asked to be escalated to her boss. Several weeks and a half-dozen phone calls later, I finally got a telephone call from a fellow named Michael Perisho, whose title I do not yet know.
I told Mike how Charter’s program would be invasive to privacy, that there were concerns with information being sold to third party advertising companies, that customers would be chilled from using their Internet access to conduct sensitive business knowing that they were monitored, that Charter’s misleading speech on the program was abusive to the public trust, and that American citizens had a right to be free from monitoring without a court order. What he said next absolutely floored me.
Charter Communications, and all other ISP’s, have monitoring hardware supplied by the United States federal government which maintains a records of what sites a customer visits. He explained in detail how smaller ISP’s which may not have the money to implement the technology themselves get it done for them by the government. He went on to explain that certain websites and material gets flagged and automatically turned over to the feds, which I assume is done without a warrant. He then went a step further, describing how at times the government will visit some specific and targeted web sites with an unknown IP address to check up on Charter to ensure that the system works, fining those ISPs which do not capture or report the traffic.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution states, “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.”
Our founding fathers could not possibly have envisioned the rise of the Internet. They had no concept of an ISP. They did, however, account for every shred of personal property a person could own in their time. Their person, houses, papers, effects; one can surely categorize one’s own email inbox, bookmarks, and surfing habits as being among one’s personal papers or effects. The obvious conclusion is that a government organization attempting to gather data on an Internet user must have a warrant, if we’re to believe that the Constitution has any standing. The question is, when Charter and other ISP’s are installing their data retention hardware and colluding with the federal government to monitor your traffic, are they doing so in a manner which is consistent with United States law? If so, is the law which grants them access to such information consistent with the Constitution? Finally, why would Michael Perisho, when confronted with a broad line of questioning regarding Charter’s new advertising program, choose to start discussing Charter’s government-mandated monitoring instead?
Charter’s intention to pair up with NebuAD to monitor customers for the purposes of increasing advertising revenue is a major violation of both personal and consumer privacy. Charter’s collusion with the federal government to turn over information about a customer based on their surfing habits is unconstitutional, going completely against of one of our most basic freedoms. I can sort of see how Michael could get the two mixed up. They’re both really nasty, and both likely to eventually result in testimony before Congress.
What really bothers me is the future implications of these programs existing within the same network infrastructure. If Charter somehow gets the legal go-ahead with this deep packet inspection program, what’s to stop NebuAD’s unpatented, unexplained, untested hardware appliance from directing every blob with your MAC, IP, and raw packet to another database before creating their “anonymous” profiles? We’re talking about a literal recreation of your entire browsing history. If Charter and the federal government are already involved in red-flagging people for the feds, what’s to stop them from using the already-available DPI data mined for free by NebuAD to improve their hit rate?
Charter is currently only alerting the government when people visit certain websites. Soon they might be capable of alerting the feds when you string certain words together across a series of emails. They’ll also be able to turn over a complete reproduction of your clickstream to back it up. They’ll do this automatically, based on the keywords you type, the websites you visit, or the content of any emails you send or receive. Maybe they’ll have warrants, maybe they won’t.
But you’re not supposed to care. You’re next in line to get Charter’s “enhanced service,” which will help you keep up with the latest fashion by providing you with an endless stream of enhanced advertising directed to your personal interests. Ted Schremp, your personal guide to the world of better ads, is here to help!