No Terrorism Toll on Privacy -- Yet

Computerworld - Much ink has been spilled since Sept. 11 over the prospect of big brother rising from the grave to steal Americans' civil liberties. Tales of privacy lost and due process ignored have buried last summer's headlines about dot-com layoffs. Even calmer heads are ruing the unabated swing of the pendulum from privacy to security. But what has really happened to Americans' privacy since the declaration of war on al-Qaeda?

If a nationwide loss of privacy has occurred, we should be seeing at least one of the following scenarios: a widespread expansion in the scope of the government's collection of personal data, courts setting dangerous legal precedents or a surge in the number of people harmed by abuses of government-collected data. These are the speed bumps on the road from liberty to tyranny, and none has been crossed.

What has happened since Sept. 11? Some airports are reportedly screening travelers' faces against a database of terrorist suspects. If you're a terrorist, the cameras will be watching, thank heaven. But if you're everyone else, your mug is neither being stored nor adored by the men behind the lens. There simply aren't enough resources at cash-strapped airports to devote to such ambition.

Some cities, notably Washington, are following Britain's lead in deploying cameras in public areas. This certainly evokes images of George Orwell's 1984. But the privacy of pedestrians strolling K St. -- if such privacy exists -- is no more affected by remote surveillance than it is by a lawyer peering out his window to the street below.

Computerworld recently reported that federal transportation officials are exploring a new system to screen airline travelers for suspicious backgrounds and relationships (see story). They're probably hoping to spot Arab men flying on one-way tickets from New Jersey or Detroit to cities far away. But if you're a family flying to a spring break destination, your privacy won't be touched. Human eyes won't review your pooled data.

The Patriot Act, passed in October, gave the FBI new powers to monitor the e-mail of suspected terrorists. Internet service providers will reportedly cooperate with the FBI to conduct packet filtering of messages to and from previously identified individuals. So if you're mixed up with a terrorist suspect, your missives will be read and, I hope, an agent will knock on your door before it's too late. But the FBI certainly hasn't taken it upon itself to conduct random keyword searches of all the e-mail coursing through the servers of U.S. ISPs.

The Patriot Act also enables government agencies