There may be little or no Fourth Amendment
protection against government’s getting your “pen register” data (or metadata)
from a list of phone numbers, web sites visited or searches entered, but they
can certainly tell investigators a lot about your affairs. Timothy B. Lee gives a detailed and lucid
explanation this morning on the Washington Post Switch Blog, following some of
the work done by GWU law professor Daniel Solove (Books blog July 23), link
here.
The biggest practical risk to consumers in western
countries is secondary suspicion if they are already under investigation for
something else. This could be
particularly the case if someone tries to frame someone else online, or a true
virus infection of one’s personal computer causes a criminal investigation
(such as child pornography, where I have covered false prosecutions on my
Internet Safety Blog, such as on July 23, 2013 and Feb. 3, 2007).
Other examples where metadata could matter could be
in background investigations, as for security clearances or even gun purchases.
It seems, then, “you” are known by your
associations.
Lee’s analysis of using metadata to deduce the
status of a personal relationship (like in divorce litigation, maybe even gay
divorce in the future, or perhaps child custody) is interesting. But some relationships still occur pretty
much “off the grid” (or “behind the Wall”, to refer to a fantasy film I saw
last night and reviewed this morning under Movies). Maybe telepathy is real, and can’t be kept “under
the Dome”. By the way, from the recaps,
that latter show sounds like it finally got interesting; I need to get caught up.
There was a small report today on WJLA-7 that some small business lenders are looking at the credit worthiness of Facebook Friends' lists in deciding on loan desirability for some applicants. This is certainly a new wrinkle on the online reputation deate.
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