Surveillance of Emergent Associations: Freedom of Association in a Network Society (2007)

Contents 21.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436 21.2 The Increasing Importance of Emergent Association. . . . . . . . . . . . . 437 21.3 The Rise in Relational Surveillance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43821.3.1 The Availability of Relational Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438 21.3.2 Evolving Uses of Relational Data and SocialNetwork Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439 21.4 The Failure of Existing Legal Paradigms to ProtectEmergent Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442 21.4.1 The Fourth Amendment and Relational Surveillance . . . . 442 21.4.2 Low Protection for Relational Data underSurveillance Statutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443 21.4.3 Relational Surveillance and the First Amendment . . . . . . . 44521.5 Where to Go from Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449 21.5.1 The First Amendment Is the Primary Barrieragainst Overbroad Relational Surveillance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449 21.5.2 Principles for Adapting to TechnologicalChange Derived from Fourth Amendment Law. . . . . . . . . . 45021.5.2.1 Pattern-Based Network Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452 21.5.2.2 Targeted Link Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453 21.5.2.3 Access to Communications Traffic Dataoutside the Network Analysis Context . . . . . . . . 454 21.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45521.1 Introduction Recent events have combined to bring the prospect of using communications traffic data to ferret out suspect groups and investigate their membership and structure to the forefront of debate. While such “relational surveillance” has been around for years, efforts are being made to update traffic analysis to incorporate insights from “social network analysis”—a means of analyzing relational structures developed by sociologists [1-13]. Interest in employing social network analysis for law enforcement purposes was given a huge boost after September 11, 2001, when attention focused on tracking terrorist networks [5,7,9,11,12,14-17]. Traffic data, when stored, aggregated, and analyzed using sophisticated computer algorithms, contains far more “information” than is commonly appreciated. Increasing computational capabilities make it possible to apply computerized analysis to larger and larger sets of traffic data and raise the possibility of employing data-mining techniques to uncover “suspicious” patterns of association. Increasing use of the Internet and other digital communications means that traffic data is increasingly recorded by communication intermediaries. The availability of this data facilitates relational surveillance [1,11,18-22].