Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 2, No. 1 | Studying Ways to Protect Privacy in an Era of Terrorism (low bandwidth)

Before September 11th, Amitai Etzioni’s book, The Limits of Privacy (Basic Books, 1999), seemed a bit farfetched. Etzioni, a sociologist at George Washington University, argued in his book that the nation was leaving itself open to terrorism by putting a higher priority on protecting individual privacy rights than on protecting national security. Today, Etzioni’s call for a better balance between security and privacy frames the national debate. “I’m all in favor of rights, but there is another thing, the public interest,” he says. “We have to figure out how to square these two things, without saying one trumps the other.”

To help work on that problem, Etzioni joined the Markle Foundation’s recently organized Task Force on National Security in the Information Age. The task force’s objective is to offer the government a comprehensive approach to improving national security through the collection and management of information without trampling on peoples’ privacy. As Zoë Baird, Markle’s president, puts it, “We are very focused on how to use information technology to enhance security—and how to pursue that goal while also protecting the liberties that charaterize America.”

The work of the task force, Baird says, will be driven by several fundamental questions. What information needs to be gathered and analyzed to foil terrorism in the United States? How can the government employ the best practices used by the private sector for data collection and information technology? How can government agencies work more effectively together in gathering and analyzing the security information it needs to combat terrorism? And how can civil liberties be protected while expanding counter-terrorism measures?

The scope of the task force’s challenge is suggested by the fact that the United States has no strategy to guide the collection and use of domestic information for national security, says Philip D. Zelikow, the task force’s executive director. He is head of the University of Virginia’s Center of Public Affairs and a former staff member of the National Security Council. By comparison, he notes, the U.S. collects vast amounts of information and intelligence abroad and uses advanced methods of analysis and data sharing to identify threats and prevent attacks. “Inside the U.S., our data is stovepiped and data sharing is weak, sometimes to protect civil liberties but sometimes for less excusable desires to keep agency missions separate. Analysis, too often, is reactive—to investigate crimes rather than to prevent attacks.” In addition, he says the government has not adequately tapped the private sector’s expertise in technology and communications. As an example, industry could advise policymakers on the development of innovative identification systems for watch lists and profiling suspects as well as the kind of safeguards that would be needed to avoid abuse.

The task force plans to produce periodic briefing papers and a final report by early 2003, but in recognition of its urgent mission, it will also advise government officials “in real time,” as its work reveals security gaps or other important findings.

The task force has 35 members, comprising national security experts, current and former government officials, business executives, academics and scientists. Ashton Carter, a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and former assistant secretary of defense for international security policy under Bill Clinton, says he joined the task force because no one else, not even in the Office of Homeland Security, is considering ways to mine the nation’s daily flow of mundane information for clues that could prevent terrorism. “The task force is asking big questions that go beyond what everyone else is asking and that go beyond the normal way of framing the issue—which is purely in terms of gathering intelligence information by law enforcement or by the intelligence community,” says Carter.

As an example, he points out that criminal investigators often look at airline passenger lists, but that it may be possible for the government to routinely sift through this colossal amount of data using search engines like those used on the Internet. “The airlines’ database could be routinely searched for names, combinations of itineraries or profiles,” Carter says. “By looking at all kinds of information about citizens and visitors, we would know who’s renting Ryder trucks or buying fertilizer for bombs or fermenters to make biological warfare agents or who is visiting Internet web sites to find instructions for designing a nuclear weapon. One could imagine a large variety of information that could be germane to homeland security. This project is looking at all the crucial safeguards and protections that should be attached to any such use of information.”