[privacy] Requests for Corporate Data Multiply

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () bsf-llc com>]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114808152438358490.html?mod=technology_main_
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Requests for Corporate Data Multiply

Businesses Juggle Law-Enforcement Demands
For Information About Customers, Suppliers
By ROBERT BLOCK
May 20, 2006; Page A4


WASHINGTON -- Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, law enforcement
efforts to secure corporate information about clients and suppliers have
reached such levels that some companies have had to create special units
that do nothing but deal with these demands, a process often called
"subpoena management."

Banks, Internet-service providers and other companies that possess large
amounts of data on their customers say that police and intelligence agencies
have been increasingly coming to them looking for tidbits of information
that could help them stop everything from money launderers to pedophiles and
terrorists.

"Corporate counsel that used to see law-enforcement-related requests five
times a year are now getting them sometimes dozens of times a day," says
Susan Hackett, a senior vice president and top attorney for the Association
of Corporate Counsel, which represents the legal departments of leading U.S.
companies.

In short, phone companies currently caught up in a controversy over reports
that they gave the National Security Agency access to records of customers'
calls are hardly the only businesses fretting over how to cooperate with the
government in the war on terror. Internet and financial companies also are
frequently targeted by intelligence and law enforcement agencies, forcing
them into situations where they must choose between customers' rights to
privacy and their own corporate desire to help the government without being
seen as agents of the government.

The situation is made even more complicated when the companies are
government contractors, vying for federal business or in an industry subject
to complicated regulation.

Time  <http://online.wsj.com/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=TWX> Warner
Inc.'s America Online Inc. employs more than a dozen people, including
several former prosecutors, handling almost 12,000 requests a year from
federal state and local police agencies. The unit works 24 hours a day,
seven days a week and maintains a special hotline that police or federal
agents can call to help them with their queries and tailor their requests.
For the last five years the company has published a "Law Enforcement
Training Manual" complete with information about how long the company
retains basic subscriber information and unread email, to sample subpoena
and court-order wordings to speed processing of the police demands.

According to AOL executives, the most common requests in criminal cases
relate to crimes against children, including abuse, abductions, and child
pornography. Close behind are cases dealing with identity theft and other
computer crimes. Sometimes the police requests are highly targeted and
scrupulously legalistic, while other times they were seen by the company as
little more than sloppy fishing expeditions. AOL says that most requests get
turned down.

"We have a very rigorous review process here," said John Ryan, AOL's vice
president and associate general counsel. "Every request that comes in from
law enforcement is vetted, and before any information is turned over an
attorney with years of experience reviews it and determines whether or not
any turn-around or process is required. I can say -- ballpark figure -- for
every five requests that come in maybe one will fit the standard to a
certain level and will be honored."

...

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