Security, privacy, access, and intellectual freedom are words that are loaded with emotional meaning and context for current societal issues. Where this delicate balance stands, is the focal point of this paper trying to demonstrate that it is better to be cautious with open practices than hostage of clandestine practices. However, privacy and personal data protection are major issues in all occasions and, thus, must be safeguarded without sacrificing national security and public interest on one hand, but without crossing the thin line between protection and infringement on the other. As an aftermath of the resulted opacity and the public outcry, a shift is recorded during the last years towards a more open governance by the implementation of open data and cloud computing practices in order to enhance transparency and accountability from the side of governments, restore the trust between the State and the citizens, and amplify the citizens' participation to the decision-making procedures. Legislation as US PATRIOT Act and EU Data Retention Directive altered fundamentally the collection, processing and sharing methods of personal data, while it granted increased powers to police and law enforcement authorities concerning their jurisdiction in obtaining and processing personal information to an excessive degree. The events of 9/11 along with the bombarding in Madrid and London forced governments to resort to new structures of privacy safeguarding and electronic surveillance under the common denominator of terrorism and transnational crime fighting. In 2005 FBI retained circa 257.5 million PNR records for which still runs profiling searches, whereas the no-fly and automatic selectee lists had more than 20,000 names in 2006 counter to only 16 on 2001 (Solove et al., 2006). 296) resulting to stricter control rules in airports, whilst the PNR (Passenger Name Record) data –namely data that airlines keep for their customers varying from credit card numbers and phone numbers to meal requests- are provided to US government even though it does not comply with the airlines' privacy policies. the degrees to which and the methods by which law enforcement agencies can collect and analyze personal information ' ( Jaeger, Bertot & McClure, 2003, p. Basically, PATRIOT Act allocated immense powers to FBI to conduct searches without the need of pre-existing warrant or ' probable cause ' clause, whilst it initiated the intensified use of more advance surveillance technologies such as computer matching, airline passenger screening, government data mining, and identification devices. The changes under FISA have even more colossal impact as they expand the circumstances under which surveillance can occur and of the records that can be searched and obtained, the ability to conduct surveillance on electronic and voice mail communications, the prevention of discussing the investigations under the secrecy clause, the extension of the use of roving wiretaps, the increased sharing of foreign intelligence information between law enforcement agencies (Jaeger, Bertot & McClure, 2003 Solove, 2004). Among the most significant changes under ECPA are the delayed notice of search warrants, more subscriber records obtainable from the communication services providers, new definition and permission of a national-wide scope of pen registers and ' trap and trace devices ' orders, national-wide scope of search warrants for email ( Jaeger, Bertot & McClure, 2003 Solove, 2004 Solove et al., 2006). Generally speaking, the PATRIOT Act made substantial changes to a number of laws reflecting on information privacy and surveillance, especially ECPA and FISA.

Fisa document info wars