Tom Keane

You've got evidence

When will we learn that digital communication isn’t private?

Are scoundrels and villains just stupider today than they once were? It used to be that if you were going to commit a crime or merely be a bit naughty, you’d try to cover your tracks. Getting caught was an outcome to be avoided. Yet now we put our transgressions on display for the world to see.

A case in point comes from the campaign of Tim Cahill, state treasurer and erstwhile independent candidate for governor. In the waning weeks of the race, stories emerged that campaign staffers had allegedly traded e-mails about coordinating activities with the Treasury. If true, that’s clearly illegal – public money can’t be used for political campaigns. The attorney general is looking into the matter and, while I have no idea where things will end up, heads could roll. All because, instead of having a meeting about it or even using the telephone, those supposedly involved circulated a bunch of e-mails.

Pretty dumb. If it’s any comfort, though, they’re hardly alone. Football player Brett Favre faces difficult times of his own for salacious text messages sent to ex-model and New York Jets employee Jenn Sterger. Ditto golfer Tiger Woods and his own paramours. New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino got into trouble for forwarding racist jokes. Florida Representative Mark Foley resigned in 2006 after the unearthing of sexually explicit instant messages he sent a 16-year-old congressional page. The Boeing Corp. ousted CEO Harry Stonecipher over indiscreet e-mails sent to a fellow executive that were found on company servers. E-mails by Goldman Sachs employees seemed to confirm an SEC investigation into investor fraud. Federal investigators uncovered internal company e-mails showing that Enron had illegally manipulated California’s electricity markets.

The list goes on. Whether it’s e-mailing, texting, Tweeting, blogging, or commenting on the Web, near-instant digital communications dominate our professional and personal lives. From one point of view, these new technologies are just an improvement on old-fashioned talking, writing, telephoning, and faxing. In truth, though, they are vastly different. The old ways had some semblance of privacy, oftentimes because they were legally protected (such as prohibitions against recording conversations) or because of the limits of technology (forwarding letters to thousands at once was logistically complicated). The most striking difference, however, is the permanence of the new forms of communication. Twenty years ago, if I sent you a letter with inside information on a stock trade, only you and I knew about it. If you were smart, you’d destroy the document and no one would be the wiser.

Not so today. E-mails are never really “sent.” They are just copied, passing from one server to the next in a long daisy chain before popping up in your account. There’s a copy in the system of the person who sent it, one in the system of the recipient, and multiple copies in between. Even if you and I successfully delete an e-mail (a far more difficult task than burning a letter, by the way), it still almost certainly exists on a hard-disk drive somewhere along the line. The fact of the matter is that, absent elaborate encryption, nothing you send is private.

Back when folks wrote letters, much time would be spent agonizing over words, making sure that nothing put in the mail would be inappropriate. For a while, I used to think that the same would happen with electronic communications. People would eventually adapt, learning not to put down thoughts that could get them in trouble.

But we don’t seem to be getting any smarter. Maybe those who claim the Internet is making us dimwitted are right. Earlier this year, a Harvard law student e-mailed controversial opinions about race to a few friends. She soon found herself under attack when one of them decided to “ruin her life” and forward it on. In all likelihood, the student would never have put those casually expressed thoughts in a letter. Electronic communications, however, never really feel the same as formal writing. Rather, their ease and rapidity make them seem more like a conversation. Our internal censors turn off. We babble on about our misdeeds, never considering the risk of public exposure when it comes to wronged spouses, prosecutors, and a public always eager for new gossip.

Originally published November 28, 2010, in The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.

Invasion of privacy

The TSA search policy is unwarranted, unjust, and humiliating

THREE MINUTES at Logan Airport ruined my day.

I arrived at the airport Monday for a flight to Detroit. I went through the security drill — shoes, belt, and coat off, laptop out, liquids in a baggie, pockets empty — but instead of the customary path through the metal detector, a Transportation Security Administration employee shunted me off to a new machine. It was one I had heard of but never passed through — a whole body imaging machine, the virtual strip search. I obediently positioned my feet where told, raised my hands as instructed and then, in a moment of sudden rebellion, objected.

“You want to opt out?’’ a guard asked.

“I don’t want to go through that,’’ I said.

From several TSA employees came cries of “Opt out!’’ “Male opt out!’’ I was pulled over to the side and told I would be searched.

The TSA has just recently implemented what it euphemistically calls an “enhanced patdown.’’ The agent firmly ran his hands over my entire body, head to toe, front and back. He rubbed his hands over my buttocks and in between. He put his hands in my pants and ran them all around my waist. From behind, he ran his hands along my legs, all the way up my thigh as high as he could go and onto my genitals. Then he moved in front of me and then did the same thing again. Remember the question once asked of candidate Bill Clinton: “Boxers or briefs?’’ My TSA examiner knows.

I have never been sexually molested or raped, so I have no idea how my experience compares. But I walked away feeling invaded, sickened, and humiliated. During the long drive after I landed, those three minutes kept obsessively turning over in my mind. Late that night, in a strange hotel room, I suddenly woke with the panicked belief that rough hands were prodding my body. That time, it was only a dream.

Of course, instead of playing the rebel, I could have acquiesced, allowing the digital strip search to proceed. It’s hardly an appealing alternative. The new machines produce graphic nude images of those they scan, which are then closely examined by TSA staff. Pilots and flight attendants have raised concerns about the machine’s safety, but the real problem is that all ordinary passengers are now essentially expected to undress before strangers’ eyes. Naturists and exhibitionists might be OK with this. I suspect almost everyone else is not.And despite TSA promises that the naked images aren’t saved, any employee with a PDA camera can capture them. It won’t be long, no doubt, before celebrity scans start making their way around the Internet.

The fatuous logic from some is that the searches aren’t coercive at all: if you don’t like them, then don’t fly. So, for example, those who must travel for work and reject the new searches can always just quit their jobs. It’s the classic Hobson’s choice — a choice that is really no choice at all.

The whole thing is intensely troubling. The TSA’s operations have been termed “security theater’’ — a show that impresses the ordinary traveler, but not one that is especially effective. Even this latest round of screenings can be easily beaten; for instance, the machines and searches can’t find items, such as explosives, hidden in body orifices.

But effectiveness notwithstanding, the real issue is deeper. The Fourth Amendment bars “unreasonable searches’’ without “probable cause.’’ Routine virtual strip searches or “enhanced patdowns’’ plainly fall within that ban. But from press reports it appears most travelers accept the government’s new intrusiveness.

True, there has been a backlash, including a proposed “Opt-Out’’ Day scheduled for next Wednesday: a national boycott of the new scanners. I wish the protesters luck but fear success will elude them. These new searches are clearly outrageous and wrong — an invasion of privacy, degrading and disrespectful. Yet 9/11 has made us a frightened and cowed people. In our quest for security, we now trade away the very freedoms that used to define us. Patrick Henry once urged, “Give me liberty or give me death.’’ Today, it’s just “give me peace of mind.’’

Originally published November 19, 2010, in The Boston Globe, op-ed page.

In line for online voting

TOMORROW, TOO few of us will vote in an election of serious consequence.

Low turnout has been a problem for a long time, notwithstanding admonitions from do-gooders across the political spectrum about how important it is that we make it to the polls. And there’s a reason for it, too: the value of one’s vote is simply not worth the effort required.

This likely sounds like some sort of civic heresy. But the fact is, voting is a pain: it requires getting into a car to drive to the polls (or walking, if you’re lucky), waiting in line, casting a ballot and then getting oneself back home. About 2.2 million people voted in the Massachusetts governor’s race four years ago, which means one individual’s ballot was worth just 0.0045 percent of the total vote (that is, less than one hundredth of 1 percent). And even for smaller races — where say, just a few thousand ballots are cast — any one individual’s vote is still just a fraction of one percent.

Think of this as an example of what Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt call “freakonomics.’’ People generally behave rationally, and are reluctant to spend time on something when there is so little in return. Indeed, the remarkable thing about elections is not that so few people vote, but that so many of them actually do.

One way to help solve this would be to make it easier to vote, which brings us to the notion of online voting. Ever since the Internet was invented, it’s been talked about. But it’s also proven to be somewhat like crumbless cake — a really good idea that no one has ever figured out. The theoretical benefits of online voting are many. It’s simple and quick, and so would encourage more to vote. It’s cheap (elections are expensive, largely because of the number of people required to staff polling locations). Many folks — such as college students and those who are traveling or in the military — don’t vote because they are away from their homes; online voting would bring them back into the electoral fold. Indeed, one could see online voting as potentially heralding a new wave of even more democracy. With elections easier to hold, public input on a variety of matters could more readily be sought.

The problem, strangely enough, is technical: the potential for fraud and manipulation is huge. You’d think that, if you could buy a flat-screen television online, it should be possible to create a system secure enough to cast a mere vote. But voting is uniquely different from online commerce. For one, Amazon knows who you are and what you ordered. With voting, we need to know who voters are — so they can’t vote twice — but at the same time how they vote has to remain secret. Then too, there has to be some system in place for recounts. (In fact, even as technology has become more sophisticated, many states have gone back to methods that use some paper because that leaves a tangible trail of evidence.)

But the toughest problem of all is security. The incentive to hack into the system and manipulate results would be huge. Imagine being able singlehandedly to change just a few votes in Florida and choose the next president (right now, that’s a power we reserve only for Supreme Court justices). Yet no computer system is perfect. The latest proof of that occurred in Washington, D.C., which put in place an online voting system it hoped to use this year for overseas voters. In a test of the system, the city invited students at the University of Michigan to try to hack in. Within 36 hours, they had done so — and as proof, they had the system play Michigan’s fight song whenever anyone voted.

“It may someday be possible to build a secure method for submitting ballots over the Internet,’’ wrote Professor J. Alex Halderman, who led the team of students, but the limits of technology today mean online voting “should be presumed to be vulnerable.’’ All of which is bad news for those of us who hate the trek to the polls. Still, even though it’s irrational to do so, even though there’s no return to be had, do it anyway.

Originally published November 1, 2010, in The Boston Globe, op-ed page.