PR for People Monthly APRIL 2017 | Page 29

An argument can be made that no matter how secure one thinks their data may be, it is always subject to being hacked. There are always hackers capable of accessing, stealing, or simply secretly duplicating data. This applies to personal data on a computer beginner’s machine, and goes as high up as the National Security Agency. Yes, the NSA.

But is all hacking, all capturing of secret or private, protected data, a bad thing? Or is it civil disobedience, whistle blowing, public enlightenment? When Wells Fargo’s bogus charges on their customers was discovered, this came from private bank information. When the housing crisis became public, much of this was through the baring of secret files, showing data that the financial institutions knew well and good that the loans were in crisis mode; the mortgage resell game was a house of cards.

An event that has people on diametrically opposed on the question of right versus wrong, good versus bad, took place in May of 2013. When Edward Snowden released a trove of classified NSA data to the public, he became a hero to some, an enemy or pariah to others.

How did he do this? He copied and saved data that was stored on secure servers; data that was no doubt deeply encrypted and protected any number of ways. Snowden had enough know-how and digital savvy to defeat protections and gain copy and save access. He was then able to either copy and/or transit the data elsewhere so he could release it, as the phrase goes, “into the wild.”

He did this after relocating temporarily to Hong Kong, where extradition laws would not apply and he would enjoy some degree of safety. That lasted but a brief moment. On June 21st of 2013 the US Justice Department pressed charges against Snowden; two counts of Espionage and one of theft of government property. Two days later he fled to Russia, which offered him safe harbor.

Among the revelations in the Snowden documents were evidence and documentation of massive spying of all kinds: wiretaps of landlines and cellphones, deep sub rosa computer entry (aka, hacking) for data review and analysis. This actually violated constitutional rights.

The United States Constitution is the seminal document of law, upon which the Supreme Court interprets and rules. The 4th Amendment to the 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.

Modern day digital assets and communications fall under these protections. In 1967 the Supreme Court found in Katz vs The United States that, in regard to a citizen’s “reasonable expectation of privacy” they are entitled to under the United States Constitution, the Federal Government must possess a warrant for wiretapping practices.

Digital

Whistle-Blowing:

Good or Bad?

by Dean Landsman