{"id":1891,"date":"2015-12-23T21:17:52","date_gmt":"2015-12-24T05:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?p=1891"},"modified":"2021-07-30T09:41:09","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T16:41:09","slug":"the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/","title":{"rendered":"The United States Now Needs To Be Part of Any Privacy Threat Model"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was working in the European Parliament, there was one quote that stuck with me: \u201cyou\u2019ll never see somebody\u2019s own government listed among the threats to a customer\u2019s privacy in their marketing material\u201d. For all the companies out there wanting to \u201chelp\u201d you with your own data \u2013 mail spam filters, big data processors, cloud services, and so on \u2013 there\u2019s always a cleptocratic government lurking in the background and which is an utter and unacceptable threat to the security of that data.<\/p>\n

With the passage of the CISA in the United States last week, the bill that has been described as a \u201cPatriot Act on Steroids\u201d and which was dysfunctionally attached as a rider to a budget bill to prevent discussion or even attention, the United States government is now an adversary to worldwide privacy. (It always was, or at least has been since the 1970s, but now it apparently has discovered it\u2019s getting away with it so well, it doesn\u2019t care to even hide it anymore.) While the US is by no means alone in this data cleptocracy \u2013 the British GCHQ, the German BND and the Swedish FRA all come to mind \u2013 it\u2019s geopolitically dominant at this time, whether one approves of that observation or not.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as the cloud, it\u2019s just somebody else\u2019s computer.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This fall, the European Court of Justice \u2013 the equivalent of an European Union Supreme Court \u2013 essentially ruled<\/a> United States soil not trustworthy for the data of European citizens, drawing on the lack of legal privacy rights in the United States. The effect of this is that U.S.-based companies may not transmit personal data about European citizens out of the European area, where legal safeguards exist for their use.<\/p>\n

The ramifications of this cannot be understated. While it may be argued that the court is not quite in tune with how modern projects operate (mostly not caring about borders in the first place), the court asserted that the previous Safe Harbor agreement \u2013 an illusion that U.S. companies would safeguard the privacy of European citizens when trusted to do so \u2013 was declared null and void. Not because the U.S. companies as such couldn\u2019t be trusted, but precisely because the U.S. government couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

After all, when you have a mechanism that not just allows a government to go in and take whatever it wants from anybody operating on its soil, but also prohibits the people witness to such a violation from ever speaking about it (so-called National Security Letters), you cannot trust anybody operating on that soil with any kind of confidential data.<\/p>\n

Especially since the passage of CISA, U.S. companies simply don\u2019t have agency to promise any kind of privacy safeguards any longer. The existence of a privacy policy is a joke for a U.S. company that has it, unless that policy speaks of zero-knowledge operations (not having or logging the data in the first place). You can only trust them with previously-encrypted data, where they don\u2019t hold any kind of key \u2013 or, for that matter, as an additional encryption layer: as stated above, the US is not the only cleptocratic government.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/x.com\/aantonop\/status\/677933077276962816
\nThis is also observable in the intellectually dysfunctional quotes from several presidential candidates on privacy. While running for the highest executive position in the United States, they appear not just unaware, but downright oblivious to some of the most important rights of citizens. It\u2019s not just that the current position is bad \u2013 the trend is worsening. They don\u2019t even understand the concept of general-purpose computing, as Cory Doctorow points out: anybody with a general-purpose computer is capable of strong encryption. End of story. Trying to turn this into a \u201cbad ability\u201d is not understanding the concept of the computer in the first place. Is this the kind of person you want running a country?<\/p>\n

As a result, frankly, the offline-born generation of policymakers and decisionmakers are enemies of privacy, and cannot be trusted. On second thought, privacy shouldn\u2019t depend on having to trust somebody in the first place. That\u2019s the whole point of it.<\/p>\n

Starting in 2016, any data threat model needs to include the question \u201cdoes this data, at any time or in any shape, touch US or UK soil unencrypted?\u201d. If the response is yes, there is no privacy and the architecture needs to be remodeled.<\/p>\n

Privacy remains your own responsibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was working in the European Parliament, there was one quote that stuck with me: \u201cyou\u2019ll never see somebody\u2019s own government listed among the threats to a customer\u2019s privacy in their marketing material\u201d. For all the companies out there wanting to \u201chelp\u201d you with your own data \u2013 mail spam filters, big data processors, … Continue reading “The United States Now Needs To Be Part of Any Privacy Threat Model”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":true,"_modified_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe United States Now Needs To Be Part of Any Privacy Threat Model<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When I was working in the European Parliament, there was one quote that stuck with me: "you'll never see somebody's own government listed among the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The United States Now Needs To Be Part of Any Privacy Threat Model\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I was working in the European Parliament, there was one quote that stuck with me: "you'll never see somebody's own government listed among the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PIA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-12-24T05:17:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-07-30T16:41:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ogimage.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rick Falkvinge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@buyvpnservice\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rick Falkvinge\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rick Falkvinge\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4\"},\"headline\":\"The United States Now Needs To Be Part of Any Privacy Threat Model\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-12-24T05:17:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-07-30T16:41:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/\"},\"wordCount\":756,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"General Privacy News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/\",\"name\":\"The United States Now Needs To Be Part of Any Privacy Threat Model\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-12-24T05:17:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-07-30T16:41:09+00:00\",\"description\":\"When I was working in the European Parliament, there was one quote that stuck with me: \\\"you'll never see somebody's own government listed among the\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The United States Now Needs To Be Part of Any Privacy Threat Model\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"PIA\",\"description\":\"Online privacy news from around the world.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Private Internet Access\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/pialogowhitekglogo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/pialogowhitekglogo.png\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":1200,\"caption\":\"Private Internet Access\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/buyvpnservice\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/piavpn\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UClyJZ47Rizb1xnwuKXDI0_w\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4\",\"name\":\"Rick Falkvinge\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ad30e41b6591c75d90c6002e54553bdd55f419d89a54b72241efa308b84a7f03?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ad30e41b6591c75d90c6002e54553bdd55f419d89a54b72241efa308b84a7f03?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Rick Falkvinge\"},\"description\":\"Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and is a political evangelist, traveling around Europe and the world to talk and write about ideas of a sensible information policy. Additionally, he has a tech entrepreneur background and loves good whisky and fast motorcycles.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/falkvinge.net\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/author\/rick\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The United States Now Needs To Be Part of Any Privacy Threat Model","description":"When I was working in the European Parliament, there was one quote that stuck with me: \"you'll never see somebody's own government listed among the","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The United States Now Needs To Be Part of Any Privacy Threat Model","og_description":"When I was working in the European Parliament, there was one quote that stuck with me: \"you'll never see somebody's own government listed among the","og_url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/","og_site_name":"PIA","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/","article_published_time":"2015-12-24T05:17:52+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-07-30T16:41:09+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":630,"url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ogimage.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Rick Falkvinge","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge","twitter_site":"@buyvpnservice","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Rick Falkvinge","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/"},"author":{"name":"Rick Falkvinge","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4"},"headline":"The United States Now Needs To Be Part of Any Privacy Threat Model","datePublished":"2015-12-24T05:17:52+00:00","dateModified":"2021-07-30T16:41:09+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/"},"wordCount":756,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization"},"articleSection":["General Privacy News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/","url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/","name":"The United States Now Needs To Be Part of Any Privacy Threat Model","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-12-24T05:17:52+00:00","dateModified":"2021-07-30T16:41:09+00:00","description":"When I was working in the European Parliament, there was one quote that stuck with me: \"you'll never see somebody's own government listed among the","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/the-united-states-now-need-to-be-part-of-any-privacy-threat-model\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The United States Now Needs To Be Part of Any Privacy Threat Model"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/","name":"PIA","description":"Online privacy news from around the world.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Private Internet Access","url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/pialogowhitekglogo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/pialogowhitekglogo.png","width":1200,"height":1200,"caption":"Private Internet Access"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/","https:\/\/x.com\/buyvpnservice","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/piavpn\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UClyJZ47Rizb1xnwuKXDI0_w"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4","name":"Rick Falkvinge","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ad30e41b6591c75d90c6002e54553bdd55f419d89a54b72241efa308b84a7f03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ad30e41b6591c75d90c6002e54553bdd55f419d89a54b72241efa308b84a7f03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Rick Falkvinge"},"description":"Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and is a political evangelist, traveling around Europe and the world to talk and write about ideas of a sensible information policy. Additionally, he has a tech entrepreneur background and loves good whisky and fast motorcycles.","sameAs":["https:\/\/falkvinge.net\/","https:\/\/x.com\/http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge"],"url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/author\/rick\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1891"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30819,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891\/revisions\/30819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}