Digital Ransacking and The Useful Reminder of Writs of Assistance
tl;dr: One of the precursors to the American Revolution was the abuse of power by Britain in the form of “writs of assistance,” an open-ended search warrant. If only the Brits had massive data stores and honey pots available to them.
My son was studying for his 9th grade US history test the other night. I was reviewing the material with him.
The Road to Revolution
He began to talk about “writs of assistance” and a man named James Otis.
One of the major points of the legal argument that Otis was hired to make to the British Crown was that these writs, which effectively searched as carte blanche search warrants, were in contradiction to the values of the Magna Carta.
“Most notably, the writs allowed officials to enter and ransack private homes without proving probable cause for suspicion, a traditional prerequisite to a search.” (source)
As my son was going through the case with me, he said,
“Ok, so basically the point here is that Privacy is Important.”
That caught my attention.
“Wait, can you repeat that?” I asked.
And he did.
Naturally, that got me thinking about privacy then and now.
Privacy Today
I am far from an expert on FISA courts or NSA listening technology. Nor am I an expert on the legality of executing a subpoena on cell phone records, though it seems pretty open-ended from what I can tell.
What I do know, however, is that the amount of information that is available today for an authority, be it the government or a private entity to inspect your life dwarfs what was available then. We all know that.
Yet, it seems that what caused a stir for the American colonists and helped catalyze the Revolution against Britain pales in comparison to what can be done today by all types of actors.
Constitutional experts may dismiss the concerns of privacy invasions by hackers going after data honeypots or the leak of home addresses from Amazon Ring community surveillance networks, though the partnerships with police departments may raise eyebrows. They may choose to focus solely on government intrusion.
So, I guess the question I am struggling with is whether governments today can access private data and do a “digital ransacking” in order to find evidence of guilt?
The answer, I would guess, is yes. We know that China can do it.
The flaw in the argument here is that the data which we think of as “ours” isn’t really ours, for the most part. So, when Google looks at health records or a government requests your cell phone records, it’s not really a “ransacking” of your private home.
Though not perfectly analogous, it sure feels like many entities, including governments, have “digital writs of assistance” today.
Sadly, the courts don’t seem to be the way out of it (and the colonists lost their appeal anyway).
The Digital Private Home
There may be other alternatives, but I think privacy is a choice that self-sovereign individuals make. It’s a lifestyle brand where you choose to respect your own privacy and value it or you choose to let others have your data.
You certainly can’t wait around for the government (as it’s against their interest) or centralized companies to really do it, Apple’s slick marketing notwithstanding.
So, start making intentional choices about your privacy.
- Download Brave and make it your default browser. (Then, make sure you set up this blog for “auto-tipping”
- Get in the habit of using a Virtual Private Network provider.
- Today, I use Hotspot Shield, which is good. As soon as Mysterium or Orchid are ready to go (and it will be soon), however, move to them.
- Try protonmail for your emails
There are some “crypto James Otises” out there. While you wait for them, it may make sense to start building your own digital private home.