American Civil Liberties Union

I grew up in a non-Nintendo household, and so was weaned on PC games. One of my favorites was the mayor-simulator SimCity. Launched in 1989, the addictive and soon-to-be venerable title became the first name in sleepless nights for kids with limited athletic ability.

After almost a decade, Electronic Arts released a new SimCity title last week, which has drawn critical praise for the game itself and widespread condemnation for extensive EA infrastructure issues that are preventing many purchasers of the game from playing (Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe even weighed with some colorful criticism). You see, SimCity requires a persistent broadband connection to the internet, even when playing single player, and the game's servers are having difficulty handling the load. (I should note that EA claims the always-on feature is integral to the game, though many believe it is simply a form of digital rights management, or "DRM," put in place to prevent copyright infringement and piracy.)

Every year, the FBI issues tens of thousands of “national security letters”—or NSLs—demanding that internet service providers, telephone companies, credit card companies, and others hand over information about their customers if it is “relevant” to a counterterrorism or counter-intelligence investigation. That information could include the web sites we visit, the email addresses of our contacts, or even information linking us to our anonymous political speech online. This practice has been shrouded in secrecy, though, because the FBI gags recipients of NSLs—preventing companies from telling their customers that the government has asked for records about them.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee today approved president Obama’s nominee, David Medine, as chair of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. With this step, we are on the cusp of finally seeing this important oversight body brought into full existence.

As new technologies emerge faster than ever, it’s vital to have a genuinely independent oversight body helping to make sure our liberties are protected (see here and here for prior posts on the PCLOB, and a 2009 report on privacy oversight). The PCLOB is a significant and much needed addition to the highly inadequate oversight structures currently overseeing our out-of-control national security establishment.

Cell phone searches are a common law enforcement tool, but up until now, the public has largely been in the dark regarding how much sensitive information the government can get with this invasive surveillance technique. A document submitted to court in connection with a drug investigation, which we recently discovered, provides a rare inventory of the types of data that federal agents are able to obtain from a seized iPhone using advanced forensic analysis tools. The list, available here, starkly demonstrates just how invasive cell phone searches are—and why law enforcement should be required to obtain a warrant before conducting them.