Slashdot Mirror
The Tightening Net: Part Two
The United States (with the help of some European Enlightenment radicals) invented the legal notion of individual, constitutionally- protected privacy, even if contemporary American citizens seem content to surrender it to government and corporations. The modern-day United States has few mechanisms for protecting privacy when it comes to personal data.
Some European countries give citizens legal control over their personal data, and forbid the transmission of personal information from one source to another without the individual's permission. They also have government agencies responsible for monitoring violations; citizens can turn to them for help. And even in most European countries, citizens surrender confidentiality when buying homes or cars or applying for bank loans. Generally, they can rest assured that the information they surrender won't be sold or passed along without their approval.
Canada, which has a privacy commissioner, has recently enacted a bill requiring companies to ask permission before collecting personal data; it also requires that they tell clients why they need it and who will see it (most Americans happily turn over their phone numbers to clerks at chains like Radio Shack and Toys 'R Us when they make purchases). But it's almost inconceivable that similiar legislation or a privacy commissioner could get past the thousands of corporate lobbyists encamped in Washington. Corporations have become the primary contributors to national political campaigns. They have powerful lobbies in Washington, where individual consumers seem to have few, if any.
The list of reasons for collecting personal data keeps growing. Federal law requires some employers to notify the government of newly-hired employees so that governments can garnish the wages of people delinquent in their child support payments. The government also screens for terrorists, tax cheats and illegal immigrants. Corporations use software programs to screen for anti-social or other "problem" behavior, and check employees against vast databases of crime and debt. Schools are deploying software programs to look for potentially violent students. Some states require that anyone who works near children go through computer and database checks for criminal histories, particularly sex offenses. In an increasingly phobic and fearful culture, it seems that privacy is sacrificed everytime a law enforcement or other perceived threat is raised.
Privacy problems are the underside of the information revolution. As the Net makes the collection of information easier than ever, it also points out one of the principal ironies of technology: Advances are almost always a double-edged sword. Software collection programs present society with access to information, advanced research and marketing techniques, but also with complex new problems, few of them being addressed by government, politics, the tech industries themselves. People are at the mercy of credit-reporting companies who can dig up all kinds of information and, in effect, punish them without perspective or due process. Getting accurate information and redressing errors is like getting tech support: it's supposed to be possible, but just try it.
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote of every American's right to an "inviolate personality," a zone of privacy around their intimate behavior and personal lives. That zone has vanished, in part due to harassment laws and other legal evolutions, but also, increasingly, because of software and mushrooming databases. Code has become a social instrument beyond the wildest dreams of many of its creators.
Banks and insurance companies have a right to see customers' credit and payment histories. But lesser infractions used to be forgotten, and individual bankers or agents had the power to make individual judgments. Computers now make information available to companies that wouldn't have had access to it, and software programs make decisions about reliability and risk. The entire process has become simultaneously impersonal.
Although there are some statutes of limitations on bankruptcies and debts -- after seven and, in some cases, ten years, according to federal law, bankruptcy can't be legally used against you and some debts must be forgiven -- there are no procedures for eradicating this information, or even for knowing how much companies are considering it. Personal data survives in databases for all time. And companies increasingly distance themselves from the source and repository if the information, the database collectors themselves. That makes accountability even harder.
Don't lenders, insurers, and colleges have some responsibility for making proportional judgments of their own, for studying the relative merits of each case and make individual decisions? Or will they blindly followed credit-tracking information, no matter the sometimes punitive impact on people?
In his book "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace," Harvard's Lawrence Lessig explains that the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees Americans the right to some measure of privacy, was conceived at a time when the prime technology for invading privacy was trespass. "Imagine then," writes Lessig," that in 1791 protecting against physical trespass protected 90% of personal privacy. The government could still stand on the street and listen through open windows, but the invasion presented by that threat was small, all things considered. For the most part, a regime that protected against trespass -- or unreasonable search and seizure -- was also protecting privacy."
When telephones appeared, this protection eroded. Private information was transmitted via phone lines. Rather than 90% of privacy being protected by the Fourth Amendment, only 50% was, estimates Lessig. Ever since, protections against privacy have not even remotely kept pace with technology. The boundaries around the reasonable information that banks, insurance companies, government and other institutions need to perform their legitimate business have been overrun. And corporations, not governments, have become the most wanton violators of privacy. One reason individual citizens feel apathetic is that they see little harm in Wal-Mart getting data about their shopping habits, or in Amazon selling lists of the books they like to other companies.
The public's fear seems to center on government, not corporate, intrusions of privacy, although polls show that fear of companies misuse of personal data is growing rapidly. But with corporations growing increasingly enmeshed with the political system, this may become an even more significant political issue, although it was never raised in the presidential campaign. History suggests that governments can change character -- Communism and witchcraft were crimes under some governments, not another. If the federal government should bow to corporate pressure and get serious about pursuing hackers and crackers online -- this doesn't seem a remote possibility -- people might regret looking the other way as their privacy is sold off bit by bit. Should today's citizens come into conflict with their government, there'll be no dearth of information about who and where they are, what they've read, bought, watched, and how they handled credit cards when they were 19.
Seemingly small transactions often have enormous implications for people's lives. The free flow of information is a noble notion, but it's becoming a frightening one as well.
is worthless.
But, I suppose, if you're totally willing to trust your government with everything, ie. a cradle to grave welfare state, you might was well trust the nanny state to protect your privacy.
The other side of the coin is to take responsibility for your own protection by arming yourself, against intruders or a dangerous government.
The problem isn't that the data is visible. The problem is that it's only visible in one direction. Companies can know everything about YOU, but you can't know anything about what their doing with this data, and often you can't check up on it to see if it's right because you don't even know it exists.
If individuals lose thier privacy, then so too should corporations. Either total privacy for all or total publicity for all - nothing in-between.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
The thing is that much of this sort of behaviour is counter-productive to getting more accurate or personally applicable company->consumer communication.
Corps do the same thing to consumers all the time. Customer support centers where the 'manager' is the person in the next cubicle over. When I ask people in corperate offices who has the authority to say yes, they "don't know". Then I ask, 'who do you report to?', they "don't know". Sure.
Best Buy won't tell people that their returned merchandise policy is 'put it back on the shelf'. Just try asking a store what their markup is on an item sometime. Why not?, they gladly collect info on how much you paid for your car, house, anything. How many times have you asked a store what is the difference between this name brand item and that generic brand one (obviously the same product w/ a different nameplate) and they tell you 'just the price'?
Some software companies are even going so far as to attempt to squash reviews and benchmarks in order to deprive the public of information that would help to make a wise purchase decision. There must be a big advantage to knowing more than the person across the bargaining table! (that should be obvious).
Insurance companies increasingly use personal info to defeat the purpose of insurance (spreading risk). Instead, you can afford insurance only if your odds of actually needing it are smaller than the chance of being struck by lightning in a cave, twice in one day. If there's any chance you might (god forbid!) make a claim, you'll probably be better off putting the premium payments into a money market account.
If you don't happen to fit their profiles of average people, you'll find that services are denied to you based on their misinterpretations of your personal data. Sometimes, consumers (citizens) have to lie in self defense. Imagine how much worse it would get if the corperations had a higher confidence in the accuracy of your profile.
In other words, corperations DO NOT have your best interests at heart. They don't have a heart and their only reason for being is to make as much money as they can. Pride and self esteem are for privately owned companies only. They are not interested in giving YOU what you actually want, they are interested in giving you a little as possable in exchange for what THEY want.
Looking at things another way, TRW et al charge money for a copy of my credit report, and corps pay it. The information must have value. I notice that they didn't pay me for MY information.
Anything given is implcitly given without restriction. Unless that restriction (that only I can use the info) is made explicit, I ought to be able to do whatever I please with it.
Why should "given without restriction" be the implicit ruleset for personal information? It certainly isn't the implicit rule for most intellectual property... I have dozens of CDs, books, EULA-free software packages, etc. which I was not only given by their original owners, but which I paid money for, and which I didn't make any agreements about at the time of purchase! Should I be able to whatever I please with them?
Society already agrees that we don't need an explicit contract to be signed every time copyrighted material is traded; we have copyright law which codifies a set of implicit agreements. Would it be such a stretch to change the implicit agreements for personal data to reflect a similar retention of control?
(Not the previous poster.) Oh, look, despite being COMPLETELY on-topic, it's an unpopular viewpoint, and there moderated down!
And yeah, I'm deliberately using the +1. If you don't like that, blow me and my karma both. This is a serious problem: some moderators don't understand the purpose of moderation. It's not to encourage concensous, but to encourage discussion.
That's a little disingenuous because credit risk is already built into the loan. To front a credit risk and then deny a loan becaue it might be risky is very close to charging everyone else a premium for the banks' double dipping into the risk pool. It's akin to an insurance company only taking healthy people and then dropping them or charging them more if they file a claim. True any bank should be allowed to decide who gets a loan and who doesn't but wouldn't differential rates be just as effective. They do that now with PMI vs. no PMI.
At least that is the way it is supposed to be...
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Yes, but the UN has no jurisdiction to enforce it. And without forcing countries into communism, how would they?
Finkployd
Tom Jefferson wanted a revolution every 20 years, so I don't see why a civil war in the next 100 is something to be scared of.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Privacy is not the only area where the USA talks big, but has actually fallen behind other countries.
America claims to be the "Land of the Free", but a greater percentage of its citizens are in prison than in any other democracy.
Speaking of democracy, isn't that one of the things that Americans think is so great about their country?
Do I even need to mention the farce that they called an election? The world leader in technology, inventor of the internet, and they don't even have a modern voting system. It would funny if it wasn't so sad.
Since the elections, I've heard people (particularly Republicans) state that America is not a democracy, its a republic. Fine, but don't try to pretend the people have any say.
Human Rights...
Don't even get me started on this one. What other civilized country still excecutes people? This is something that 3rd world countries are great at, as well as places like China and Iraq. But the USA? How can a country that is so ahead economically, be so behind in social policy and human rights?
(My guess is that it has something to do with religion, but thats just me...)
(Excuse me while I put on my flamesuit now...)
Reality has a liberal bias
A good point, but are you aware how much data is being kept about yyou already without your permission? Certainly if everybody had your explicit permission, nothing would be wrong.
Tell me that in ten years, Sheepdot. The stuff I mentioned has almost already happened; very similar things are already being done. Genetic privacy issues are already real and aren't going away, and may yet affect you (who has perfect genes?). Stores are collecting incredible (in the literal sense of the word) amounts of data today. It's not paranoid when it's already happening!
PS: As for the idea that companies need detailed data about you to function efficiently, that's just plain bullsh*t. What they need is an efficient infrastructure, good lines of internal communication, good management, all the traditional stuff. Only marketers think they "need" detailed data about all of their hypothetical future customers. (Note nobody complains about data companies need to function... surely Amazon needs to know where to ship that book to... while this could be worked around it's not really worth the effort at this time.)
And how do you get an efficient infrastructure? By tailoring it to meet demand. I think it is safe to say that there's nothing wrong with *agregate* statistical data, right? (I.E. "43% of the people going to Amazon.com look at books, 12% of those, actually buy books.")
Consider Amazon.com. The efficiency of their infrastructure is not merely about how many books they can ship in a period of time, or how many hits their web site can handle, but how many *orders* they get per dollar spent on business development (including marketing).
What is more efficient for Amazon.com? 100 customers who each come and buy 1 book, or 10 customers who each come and buy 10 books. The latter. Why? Because there is overhead to processing an order. So clearly, multi-item, and repeat purchases are important to the efficiency of their operation. How do you achieve that? Traditionally it's done via the 80/20 rule. You can get 80% of your customers to behave in the manner you desire with 80% of the effort, and you ignore the other 20% since that would consume the "other" 80% of the effort.
Personal targeting allows businesses to operate *much* more efficiently. Amazon.com can suggest items to me that I am likely to want, and can hide stuff I'm unlikely to want which makes me more likely to buy multiple items or order again. I do, in fact, like this feature.
I do not like the idea that Amazon.com would sell this information, or that it could be used against me by 3rd parties -- that is where the biggest privacy-related problems lay.
-JF
MrJoy.com -- Because coding is FUN!
There is no such thing as a right "to" anything. A right "to" something is another way to say that you have a right to force somebody else to do something to help you.
Instead, true rights are things that nobody can do to you: own you, hurt you, take your property, stop you from saying or writing something, or going somewhere, or meeting with someone.
A "right to a job" imposes an obligation on someone else to provide you with a job. True rights don't interfere with anyone else's rights.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I don't hold a conversation with anonymous cowards. Signon or be satisfied with one reply.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The privacy commisioner position was probably created after that HRDC (Human Resources Development Canada) scandal where it was discovered that the government had been collecting a huge database of personal information. HRDC was also involved in another scandal where they lost a billion dollars (yes, they have no idea where it went). The database was ultimately disbanded, but....
For many years, auto insurance has cost more for men than for women. Insurance companies discriminate on the basis of whether you have a Y chromosome. Is this somehow different than what we call "genetic discrimination" now?
Only in one respect--you can determine someone's sex without performing a genetic test. Still, people have no control over surrendering information about their sex, nor can they determine it.
If it's OK to discriminate for car insurance on the basis of sex, why not health insurance on the basis of other factors?
>Companies actually (gasp) use this information to determine how to best initiate information, and what sort of information to give you.
the information they give me is:
-we have product foo
-it does bar, and generally monkeys around beter than anything else [for this price]
-it'll cost you this much
gues what.. if I want bar and some general monkeying around, I'll look up the information (independant tests usually from specialist mags or consumer orgs) or ask in a couple of stores about what there is, and at what cost. this would bring down cost for the product, since there's no more millions gone on so-called info. I would be a lot less annoyed, and so would many many people with me. all this better communnication talk is the difference between carpet-bombing and laser-guided smartbombs. the result is destructive and everyone would be better off without it.
//rdj
PS. less trees will die too
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Slashdot is usually on the side of free spread of all information. Funny to see the reverse position being taken here.
Perhaps (and I stress this is just a loose thought) the real beef is with big corprations?
Because your situation has changed since you've had a child. Maybe your spouse has died, been incarcerated, or left you to fend for yourself. Maybe the working spouse has been laid off and now can't find a job making more than half of what he/she did before, so in order to make up the difference, the spouse who was staying home needs to get a job.
Be aware that there are a lot of situations to consider. If you were in a situation where you were capable of being a parent, and then your situation changes, you can't go back and unhave the kids.
And these people don't have families? No retired grandmother to help out? I may be far from the norm, but I have a huge extended family. I've been helping raise my little cousins for so long I have no desire to have my own kids! Whenever my mom needed some help with me and my brother she could call one of her sisters, or her mother, or my dads mother. What happened to the american extended family?
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
The short version of what a lot of people are saying in this thread is that If you Can't Take care of your child then Don't Have one. The last thing we need is a lot of children growing up full of resentment because their parents were always too busy to play with them. If you want to have children then be prepared to slow your life down and sacrifice to take care of them, don't think you can just pop one out, send him off to day care and then show up at high school/college graduation to say hello.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
>[I'm going to continue to assume that] You're in the ad business - you know as well as I do that the cheapest and most effective method of advertising is word of mouth. Not slapping the word "viral" onto a glorified chain letter, but real people spreading the word that someone concentrated on their core business and developed a superior product than that of their competitors.
/less/ ads that give them equal economic returns. Tying your browsing habits to your personal data will only happen 'opt-in'-style, in the future. Fortune500 companies will be insanely careful as to how they handle this kind of information, and these sorts of technologies.
Bang on. I actually work on the bleeding edge of online advertising (as a developer). We are working on bringing the Fortune500 companies online; delivering an advertising model that will enable them to get favorable ROI. And I really do think it comes down to the value we place on our privacy. Definately the most important factor in a successful consumer-tracking model is that it is an 'opt-in' system, not 'opt-out'; that is, a company does not start communication with you until you SPECIFICALLY request it (by interacting with a banner online, for instance). The point is, for fortune 500 companies, it already is opt-in for the most part. Coke would never send you unsolicited email. Allowing them to track the data of consumers who want to be tracked makes everyone happier, and probably does something to keep those companies off the backs of those who do not 'opt-in' to be 'tracked'. And don't make any conclusions as to the severity or level of detail in 'tracked'; right now, all ad companies can track is browser, ip, os, area code, and time data. Nothing personal, but information that still might give a company insight into increasing its Return on Investment (ROI) on a given campaign, and thus allowing them to actually show
I find it all quite exciting; I started working this job feeling ethically uncomfortable, but the stipulations as to how the ultimate decisions must be in the hands of the consumer has convinced me that I am a part of something which is better for everybody in the long run.
My original point was that if that 'opt-out' option is available, it's better for everyone, including, I believe, you, to opt-out rather than supplying bogus information. Never will companies stop trying to track the consumer's behaviours (and in the future, it will be less of a 'tracking' and more of a 'listen to what the consumer has to say'), so bogus information will only lead to incorrect targeting and more wasted dollars, paper, and electrons.
If something has never been said/seen/heard before, best stop to think about why that is.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Copyrighting your personal data won't work, since technically you don't "own" the data, but this does:
:-) Things that make you go, hmmmm.
"All Rights Reserved."
Remember, when you give your signature, you [potentially] are waiving certain rights. Include the above phrase to keep all that you can. (Make sure it is JOINED to your signature, not seperate!)
WHY do you think companies have this everywhere?! They are legally a person under the law, so use the same laws they do, to your advantage for a change!
Another interesting tidbit, is that the Queen of England is a corporate sole. And the Governer General of Canada! What do these people know that most people don't?!! Black's Law Dictionary gives a hint "in order to give them some legal capacities and advantages, particularly that of perpetuity, which in their natural persons they could not have had."
So if a person is a corporate sole, do they have to pay estate tax on their death?
Do you own research though. For other ways to protect yourself, you can read the Frog Farm FAQ
--
"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite." - Thomas Jefferson
Actually, that's also prohibited, explicitly. Did you really think that if you thought of that, that its watchdogs would not? Really, now...
From the NSA FAQ:
Couldn't the Agency simply ask its allies to provide them with information about U.S. persons?
We have been prohibited by executive order since 1978 from having any person or government agency, whether foreign or U.S., conduct any activity on our behalf that we are prohibited from conducting ourselves.
Therefore, NSA/CSS does not ask its allies to conduct such activities on its behalf nor does NSA/CSS do so on behalf of its allies.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The Bush family has always been tied very tightly to the CIA... One of the foremost priorities of the next administration is "National Security"...
Our privacy rights are going to erode so fast that it really can't be called "erosion," it'll be more like "excise."
Note that the examples you've listed are all examples of governmental agencies selling your info.
True, but the companies to keep our eyes on are the private corporations buying that information and selling the data about us. They can aggregate it, correlate different information and come to their own conclusions. This aggregation is what "data mining" is all about. What if the database is screwed up? Will you be able to find out before it screws up your life? You miss out on a job? You miss out on a home loan? There are mechanisms to correct mistakes, but they are universally slow.
Once it leaves the government's hands, they have lost all control. All government agencies are accountable, for the most part, (ultimately) to the citizens of that country. (Yes, I know there are major exceptions.) If there is enough uproar (as there was a few years back about driver's license records, which enabled a stalker to find, and ultimately murder, a sit-com actress) the government will change its laws.
A company is only accountable to its shareholders. If the company runs afoul of the law, and is punished, ultimately the shareholders pay the cost. That company has no obligation to the public, other than to obey the law.
Right now, privacy is being treated as an opt-out process- I would prefer if it was, by default, opt-in. Since we don't necessarily know all the data that is collected about us, I want all information about me to be considered private, and let me decide what is to be made public.
If a private company wants to distribute it, they should have to tell me what information they are selling and to whom. I would prefer it if my state would not distribute this information, but ultimately, it will have to be a federal action that forces privacy. As it stands now, if it is not expressly prohibited, it is permitted.
(to be truthful, it appears that for the most part, we agree, unless, I'm being particularly dense and failing to catch on to your irony)
My major peeve, as stated above, is that we're setting the fox to guard the henhouse. We should at least hobble the fox first.
Absolutely. As a citizen of a country, we have a right to at least try to affect the policies of the government. Unless you're a shareholder in a company, you don't have any grounds to ask a company to restrain itself. If you're not, you can ask, but they have every right to ignore you.
Or, consider this it boils down to who "owns" that information- My private information is mine- I should retain ownership, and from that, control. If I give it to you, you can use it, but you should have no right to distribute it further, unless I grant you that right.
But this makes me wonder, What are the negative results of restricting my private information? I might miss some direct mail, I might miss out on some unsolicited credit card offers. What else? Has this been touched on elsewhere in this article's discussion?
...the more we keep discussing this, the more we agree...
There is one point where we disagree-- What I would like to see, which would be a huge change in the way we think about our private data, is that, by default, all private information is private. If there is any personally identifiable information (name, address, SSN, etc.), it would automatically be deemed private. It could be collected without explicit permissions of the "owner" of the data, but it could not be distributed without the permission of the "owner." If you can't gain the permission of the owner? You can't distribute it.
I have some difficulty with the panhandler analogy: once I give money away, really, I have no say. I would like to know that my money is going to food and shelter rather than Maddog and Marlboros, but I have no say. Enough pennies will make a million dollars... This data can be aggregated to something much more valuable. It is about data security- when I used to work with classified data, we got annual briefings on OPSEC -Operational Security- which basically meant, keep everything to yourself, because you want to deny "the enemy" any sort of information advantage. Something you may think is trivial may be the key to tying together a whole raft of data. Enough generic demographic data can zoom right in on an individual. I want to be able to trust who I give my information to, and make sure they don't use it against my wishes. There does need to be some higher controlling authority- and in this case it is the government.
Can it happen? I don't know. Making and enforcing these provisions would be daunting, but I think it is the direction we ought to go towards, less will be equivalent to no privacy at all. Data storage and processing power keeps getting cheaper, without some restriction on the collection and sharing of personally identifiable information, there eventually will be no such thing as privacy.
(Whoowhee, I'm sounding like a real zealot. Guess I ought to go back to my cabin and finish my manifesto.)
Oh, of course, it's Katz on
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Here in the UK we _do_ have rights of data access. For once our Government has done something quite well. The Data Protection Act Was originally drafted in 1984 (the irony!) and has been amended a few times since. In action, it works - I have requested credit profiles for myself for the nominal charge of UK £1, and received the information quickly and without quibble.
Pity about the mess that is RIP, though... Stand has a good writeup about it...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
In msot of these other countries peoep lpay for services we Americans expect to be 'free'. They pay per minute communciation charges. They pay for a license to recieve off-air TV, the list is huge. They pay large taxes to supprot large government infrastructures to address (amogn other things0 some of Jon Katz's favorite issues
Americans always want everything for nothing. Slashdot is particularly good at this behavior. If you don't want the companies whsoe services you use making money off of the generated inforation, be prepared to make it up out of your own pocket.
Thats life as an adult, folks.
Jon, where in the Constitution (or the Bill of Rights) is the right of privacy specifically guaranteed? Other than the 4th amendment's protections against unreasonable search and seizure (which the Supreme Court seems hellbent on gutting) there is no guarantee of the right of a person to privacy. The ninth amendment is usually taken to constitute a right of privacy. though it doesn't specifically mention the word. IIRC, Justice Harry Blackmun's majority opinion in Roe v. Wade relied heavily on precedent involving the 9th amendment. Any constitutional lawyers feel like commenting?
I: You don't have the right to our public lands to strip mine, graze your cattle, chop down our trees, or drill out our oil.
I'll buy that. It's highly unlikely that I'll ever be in the mining, cattle, lumber, or oil business, being a computer engineer, but if I ever do end up in these businesses, I'll do it only on land that I own. And since it will be my own, and I give a hoot about my own land values, you can rest assured I'll take damned good care of it.
II: You don't have the right to rile up your dittoheads by blaming all their personal problems on environmentalists (tree-huggers), immigrants (racist term of the month), and feminists ("feminazis").
Fine by me. Though it'd be nice if the environmentalists, racist race warlords (self-appointed "civil rights leaders"), and feminists stopped blaming the troubles of the world on me just cause I happen to be a white male. Hey, I didn't ask to be.
VI: You don't have a right to criminalize victim-less behavior so that you can sell extra helicopters to Columbia, have an excuse to violate the original Fourth Amendment through illegal search and seisures, and basically try and enforce a police state.
I couldn't agree more. Arresting folks for being high in public makes sense to me. Same as throwing folks in the drunk tank if they've had a bit too much and are wandering the streets. Arresting them on the suspicion that they've got a little bit of a plant in their own house, however, is ludicrous.
VII: You don't have a right to the possessions of others. But, if you're a criminal junk bond salesman or inside trader, you'll go to a minimum security prison with a big screen TV and get to live a life of leisure.
I won't disagree, our prison system's messed up. Like the guy in Shawshank Redemption said, "Funny thing is, on the outside, I was an honest man. I had to come to prison to become a crook."
X: Agreed.
Thank you.
---
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
I couldn't agree more. In the words of Voltaire, "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other."
This seems about as good a discussion as any to share something I got from a friend lately. It was supposedly written up by a member of my state's legislature. Can't verify the source personally, but I do agree with the sentiment.
Articles for the Constitution
We, the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid any more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great- great-great grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt-ridden, delusional and other liberal bedwetters.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people were confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim that they require a Bill of Non-Rights.
ARTICLE I:
You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.
ARTICLE II:
You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone - not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc. but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.
ARTICLE III:
You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.
ARTICLE IV:
You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.
ARTICLE V:
You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.
ARTICLE VI:
You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.
ARTICLE VII:
You do not have the right to the possessions of others. if you rob, cheat or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big-screen color TV or a life of leisure.
ARTICLE VIII:
You don't have the right to demand that our children risk their lives in foreign wars to soothe your aching conscience. We hate oppressive governments and won't lift a finger to stop you from going to fight if you'd like; however, we do not enjoy parenting the entire world, and do not want to spend so much of our time battling each and every little tyrant with a military uniform and a funny hat.
ARTICLE IX:
You don't have the right to a job. All of us sure want all of you to have one, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.
ARTICLE X:
You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to pursue happiness - which by the way, it is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.BR
---
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Hear hear. In the words of Ben Franklin, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
---
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Mr Potter has already shown in the past months he had a serious problem with the French, since its ideological (not to say religious) leanings are simply incompatible with the simple fact that the French system is working. Facing this dilemna, he has two choices: ask himself whether he has to question his own beliefs, of spread FUD on France to persuade himself and others that France sucks. Of course, the second solution is the easiest one, especially since he's definitely not alone, in the Anglo-Saxon countries, to play this game, newspapers will feed him with the FUD and lies he needs.
Now we know he also has a similar psychanalitic issue with Sweden. No wonder, the reasons are approximately the same (although I assume his antipathy towards Sweden is much less viceral).
Will all this being cleared up, Mr Potter, may you please answer this simple question: what is your definition of "spiritually malnourished", how do you measure that, and how do you observe the consequences? I'm sure your answer will bring us plenty of light, and plenty of fun.
What he should have done is written the summary on the front page portion, copied it onto the article body since people seem to expect that, then an <hr> and then the article.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
The simple fact is we have tools that are as good or better than the tools any government or corp out there have. For example (I link to this all the time but it is because I think they deserve all the help they can get) take a look at rubberhose . Or if you really want your stuff to be private take a look at this. Either of those tools will help you protect your data. Ok for cruising the web there are a lot of anonymous redirectors out there and ways to encrypt your stuff. Now as to being able to live without someone tracking your stuff. It is possible to live without a credit card not easy and stuff tends to cost more (no shopping on the net) but it can be done. As for credit it is possible to get housing with bad/no credit (trust me I've done it) and you can do the same with a car but then again if you don't want someone to track you you would not be buying a car on credit anyway. As to background checks put some effort into it and figure out a way to make a living where it does not matter. The US military would like you and many of the people in their ranks to think that I am not able to get a job because of the kinds of issues that Jon is going on about. The fact of the matter is because of my skillset I have not had one employeer since I got out check my record and now it is so far in the past I doubt anyone would care. This is only a issue for the lazy and those who don't care. If you really care it is possible and not very hard to live a very private life.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Of course the United States is not going to be as aggressive as European countries on this issue, because the US is the home of freedom. Freedom of speech cuts in a lot of directions, from the right to send you advertisements in your mailbox (which is why spam will never go away) to the right of someone to repeat information that is known about someone else.
You can't have freedom's upside without freedom's downside. For every instance that socialistic countries crack down on something you like (privacy regulation), there are a hundred ways they crack down on something you won't like (France's anti-nazi nonsense).
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
While we are guarenteed that we won't be prohibited from exercising free religion, for example, there is no guarentee that people and the government will not know what our religion is. Similarly, a hundred years ago you could walk around town, and, if you knew the gossips, get all the dirt about who I had been flirting with, whose flowers my dog dug up, etc. Now the inquiring person doesn't have to leave his house, but this is only a difference in degree not kind.
As true as Lessig's observations are, they are not entirely relevant here. True, your house was private in the time of the Constitution, but still if you welched on bets or screwed up your accounts the whole town would know, b/c you didn't do that kind of thing in your home, instead you did it out in public, at the bank, etc., i.e. in a non-protected environment.
Your public actions are public knowledge. The notion that judgements are now made on the numbers and not on a personal level is not a result of more data being forfitted but instead due to the power and efficiency of databases and computing in general. There has never been anything preventing companies having guys follow you around and see where you shop, it is, after all "a free country" to quote the maxim, but it's not efficient.
the problem, in the end, and in my opinion, is not that our public actions are public, but that the private acitions of corporations, because by the silliness of the law they are considered individuals, are private, however. if people decide to hate us based on our dog in that flower bed, though, they have every right.
--(Harvard's) b1nd0x
sell your certainty and buy bewilderment
It's alot easier to see the negatives in a situation and I was guilty of it when it came to personal information being collected and used. When one looks at it from the standpoint of keeping violent children out of our schools, making sure support payments are made, or keeping terrorists out of our countries. It is too bad that collected information is seldom used with ones judgemtn and too often read in black and white. It is this information that could make living life difficult for a respected member of society that made one mistake in the past.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
For crying out loud, Jon. The concept of personal privacy doesn't appear anywhere in the Constitution. Every single time you start waving the "And You Can Thank The United States For..." banner over your head like a lunatic, you not only make yourself out to be more of an ass, but you provide immesurable cannon fodder for equally idiotic people to perpetuate the "Americans Are Big Headed Blithering Idiots" mantra.
Yes, the United States have revolutionized modern government, and they stand as an example to the world in many things. No, not everything you touch can be turned into Home Team Glory. The government of the United States was crafted by a group of genuinely brilliant men who based much of their own thought on generations' worth of work done by European thinkers, scholars, leaders, and revolutionaries. Your assertion that "some European Enlightenment radicals" helped the United States invent personal privacy is about as accurate as me asserting that Europe provided the framework for personal privacy, and that framework was first implemented by some Colonial separatist radicals.
Why do you insist on labeling everything you see as good and just in this world as American?
information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
As for online privacy not being as real a concern as, say, your example of medical information, where do you think companies interested in your medical health are looking? It's not just your doctor's notes they want to see. Insurance companies would also be fascinated to see how often you read the 'Cancer Survivor' type of site. Or to track down every comment you've made at the 'Need For Speed' race car site.
Just because you can't imagine the danger that will come from losing online privacy, it doesn't mean it won't later come back to haunt you once you've lost it.
________________
________________
Private Essayist
How about copyrighting your personal data, and at the bottom of each form you fill out put the line.
:-)
All personal data (C) 2001 All Rights Reserved This copyrighted information may not be transmitted or, duplicated in any form without the written permission of the copyright holder.
I wonder if you could sue a company for copyright infringement, if they violate that statement.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
Right there. That's your problem. Not just for this, but for most of my big issues with the US. Lobbying (in my opion) totally perverts the normal course of government. How can government govern for the people where there are a whole army of people, paid for by a distinct minority, who have the power to influence the opinions of many senior senator and representatives.
Granted, some good bills have been passed due to lobbyists, but they were bills that, in a lobby-free environment, would have come around anyways (assuming a semi-sentient government). Put all groups equal before the house. End lobby groups.
No more lobby groups, and you get bills like one for privacy and one to stop Alaska being turned into a large oil refinerny to happen naturally.
Cue The Sun...
I recently went to change insurance carriers and got refused coverage by a variety of providers. It took me nearly a month until the full cause of this was known. One of the agents was a close friend of my new in-laws. You should have heard the strange tone in her voice when she turned us down. It turns out that someone elses driving record was attached to my Soc. Security record in a state I hadn't lived in for years. This person had over 12 convictions on their record including 2 D.W.I. offences, failure to appear, numerous accidents, etc. Once I was aware of the error I called back those companies and they cleared their databases immediately. You know what though, they all trade and share information from some of the same clearing houses. Unless that bad data is erased everywhere it very well will come back like a virus. BTW, one of the data houses I had to deal with is the same that erroneously reported many potential Florida voters as felons, thus preventing them from taking part in the election. I recently got turned down far into the interview process from a couple of jobs that required security clearance. I don't want to get too paranoid but no doubt I think that a potential employer would turn me down if they found a rap sheet on me like that. I know I am angry when my grammer goes out the door. Forgive me.
I hate to tell you this, but in the US privacy is not constitutionally-protected. The closest thing we have is protection from unreasonable search and seizure, but this only applies to law enforcement and so isn't sufficient to really qualify.
It's one of the great shames of the United States in this day and age, but it's true.
----------
I set to (2) so hopefully much of the crud is screened out but I'm amazed that the discussion basically breaks down into:
(1) Ya can't fight city hall so don't try.
(2) Lie Lie Lie.
(3) No privacy is the price ya pay for keeping molesters off the street.
(4) Privacy is an overrated concept promoted by those socialist pussies in Europe.
And they call me cynical?
If you think laws guaranty your personal emotional completeness you are a delusional weenie. That doesn't mean we don't need to have some standards and guidelines.
How do you know you weren't turned down for a loan, not because of your credit risk but because of your medical history.
How do you know you weren't turned down for a job because of your video tape rental records.
The point is, children, that you need to establish some basic protections or expectations of privacy in order to claim that they exist at all. Or would you rather see an eBay marketplace with lists of all of the a.b.p.e newsgroups you fetish around in?
Have you been studying your history?
England's history is filled to the brim with revolts by powerful barons (see Magna Carta , Oliver Cromwell ) against weak kings who were consequently unable to see their power (and thus the power of the State) constantly eroded. The net result is that during the industrial revolution, when the bourgeois seized economic power, they frowned upon the power of the state to interfere with their profits. The british empire is filled with private corporations that had their own armies to enforce their own justice over conquered lands (like the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company - which still exists to this day); of course in no way that "justice" is geared towards the well-being of the people who lived there first - for example, the HBC forbade indians to trade furs amongst themselves (as they did for thousands of years), but instead, they had to SELL them (for trinkets) to the HBC, and, of course, indians had to buy it from them if they needed furs).
The net result is a mindset which sees all evil in whatever the State does, and turns a blind eye to the worst abuses by private citizens, a, perhaps, every private citizens aspires to be a Bill Gates.
With such a mindset, it's no suprising that citizens see nothing wrong in being screwed by private enterprise (after all, they might, one day, become big enough to screw smaller fry) but jump to the ceiling each time the government steps in to protect smaller people.
--
Canada's privacy commissioner is simply another position established so that the Liberal government has a job to grant to party supporters who no longer want to act as representatives. The position is a farce and carries absolutely no real duties or responsibilities.
It's something akin to the new $182,000/year "Ambassador to the Environment" position conjured up for a retired Liberal...
Just cuz you ain't paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you.
First of all, if your credit report looks like someone wiped their ass with it, ie, someone with five pages of past dues, overdraws, and collections, nine times outta ten you ain't gettin the loan. It's simple economics. You can stand on a soap box and say that it's private information, but when your talking money, it turns into another issue. Especially when it's not your money to start with.
I know we'd all like to forget those times when we forgot a credit card payment or we let a bill or two go astray. But that's not the banks fault. They're simply covering their ass, so to speak. You can't expect a lending institution anywhere to simply try to forget that you let your payments go to collections and your loans foreclose then say, "Well, we knew you had to buy groceries, so it's okay."
If you can't afford a loan, don't get one. It's as simple as that. If you can't afford a credit card, don't get one. Rinse, Wash, Repeat. It's not anyone's responsibility but yourself to keep track of your bills, and you can't just be forgiven for them overnight.
But there is a flipside. If you've shown improvement over the last long while--and I'm talking years here--then even five pages of bad credit could still get you a loan. But you have to be willing to pay off what you owe, or be making headway doing so.
Credit Bureaus weren't made so banks could nose in on your business. They were made because banks were tired of getting ripped off.
Of course, I don't have to add (but I will) that politics are everything and if you know the loan officer at your local bank then you're probably more likely to get the loan. I hate to put it that way, but it's true. Just ask the girls with the big breasts and how much trouble they have getting their car fixed.
Evan
misterorange.com
The Constitution is not a guarantee of anything. It is an agreement between a people and a government. The Federal Government agrees that it will only do a few carefully circumscribed activities (this is the theory anyway), and the people will not revolt against it.
That we've failed to enforce the Constitution is hardly the fault of our government. Governments have a certain nature -- to take away freedom. Woe until any citizenry that forgets that as ours has.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
My bad. Those whose views you espouse. (It's just that the only people who've phrased it the way you did have been direct marketers ;)
>social patterns and behaviour are irrevoricably changed by new technologies
Interestingly enough, I agree with you here - but come to the exact opposite conclusion, namely...
> I know more than a few marketers who's attitudes towards consumers are almost direct reactions against consumers' attitudes towards marketers.
>The point is, I'm no coperation-lover,
Don't mistake my loathing of certain marketing techniques with a loathing for corporations in general. I like corporations. I work for one and invest in several others, tech and non-tech alike. Profits are great. (Though I'm speaking for myself here - there are just as many slashdotters who loathe 'em)
> You sound like my counter-culture friends who would rather spend a good night out culture-busting than figure out an alternative for the corperations (who are too lazy and focused on their core business to pursue such alternatives); that is, a cheaper, better, more cost effective, easier way of advertising that doesn't piss everyone off.
In honesty, I think you and I are aiming for the same thing (less-intrusive and obnoxious advertising) here; we just have different strategies of getting there, because part of my goal also includes a privacy factor; it's none of your business what I read/watch/listen to, which is why I try to deny you that data.
When I enter bogus demographic data, my intent is to devalue that data pool. If I'm successful over the long term, companies will realize that direct marketing campaigns - ranging from telemarketing to junk mail to spam - generate poor returns on investment. And they will have to find better ways of generating sales. (Which is, ultimately, what I think you're after too, except that you place less value on privacy than I do, because you see privacy as a commodity to be traded away in exchange for less-intrusive ads, whereas I see it as an inalienable right, for which ad agencies have yet to offer me anything remotely near what I'd "charge" for it.)
[I'm going to continue to assume that] You're in the ad business - you know as well as I do that the cheapest and most effective method of advertising is word of mouth. Not slapping the word "viral" onto a glorified chain letter, but real people spreading the word that someone concentrated on their core business and developed a superior product than that of their competitors.
To pick an example of what I mean by "real" word-of-mouth vs. "let's generate some buzz" campaigns, six months from now, we'll have all forgotten about "Ginger". But we'll still be having the P4-vs-Athlon "bang-for-buck" debates because AMD, two years ago, bought some smart engineers and came to market with a product that provided lots of bang for very little buck. AMD got where they are today without a penny spent on guys in bunny suits or blue face paint.
If you wanna make an even more direct comparison - Coke vs. Pepsi. No "AMD is better because of technical reasons" here - but if you look at revenue growth, it's all about profit margins at the soda fountain, not the can in the store. KO can show as many CGI-rendered bears and happy teenagers sitting around campfires or howling at trains as it wants, but over the past few years, PEP's been getting the higher-margin and better market share by concentrating on the fountains in the theatres and restaurants.
Which is to say that word of mouth doesn't have to be at the consumer level, nor does it have to be based on technical superiority - it can be at the small business level, based on sound pricing strategies too.
> I do this as a matter of principal; keep seperate web-based email addresses, my "salary" ranges from 0-10,000 to 250-500,000 depending on my mood at any given time, my job title similarly varies, etc. etc.
/love/ to send you communication that aligns with your interest rather than showing commercials of the All American family (ie, the lowest-common-demographic denominator); but they can't (yet), because consumer targeting and profiling technology isn't there yet and people still don't believe that if a company can give you what YOU actually want, everyone is better off.
The thing is that much of this sort of behaviour is counter-productive to getting more accurate or personally applicable company->consumer communication. Companies actually (gasp) use this information to determine how to best initiate information, and what sort of information to give you. The thing I find mind-blowing is that people complain how companies never do things the way they want, but turn around and throw as many cogs into their consumer-profiling analytics as they can. Did you know that if a company could give you what you actually wanted, they could ease up on the geurilla or trick-the-consumer style tactics? Ask Coke or Microsoft! We dont like them because they can rarely afford to target their enormous consumer-bases with customer-granular communication. (Imagine if the fist time you heard of Microsoft, they offered to send you sports scores to your cell, or a free software package of your choice along with Win98, which you (or 98% of computer users) will get anyways.) They would
If something has never been said/seen/heard before, best stop to think about why that is.
"Old man yells at systemd"
> What about those of us who just don't want the "information" you "want to give" us
:) I work in an industry company; we don't advertise, much less track info. And, at any rate, you live in a capitalist country; if you think advertising isn't the foundation of capitalism, give my sympathies to your mail box for being misunderstood. You're getting information, whether you like it or not. The basis of my argument inherently assumes you'll never stop getting 'junk mail' (which I believe to be true). So, stop whining about it, and at least make the best of it. You're opinion is nothing but a tantrum.
Who said it was me?
Also, track records arn't applicable with respect to new consumer-behaviour-tracking technologies. One of the very foundations of technology, society and values studies states that social patterns and behaviour are irrevoricably changed by new technologies. That is, if you can only look backwards, you'll never be happy with the future. I know more than a few marketers who's attitudes towards consumers are almost direct reactions against consumers' attitudes towards marketers. There's no use arguing who started it now (never mind that these people are your family, your neighbours, and maybe even you, depending on your job and employer); we might as well just make amends and figure out a way of making things better for both 'sides'.
The point is, I'm no coperation-lover, nor do I work for one, endorse one, or play one in a movie, but you're a fool if you think they're going to magically go away if you whine and wave your arms around enough. I'm much rather figure out a way of sleeping with the enemy, and getting a good lay out of it. You sound like my counter-culture friends who would rather spend a good night out culture-busting than figure out an alternative for the corperations (who are too lazy and focused on their core business to pursue such alternatives); that is, a cheaper, better, more cost effective, easier way of advertising that doesn't piss everyone off. Including yours truely.
If something has never been said/seen/heard before, best stop to think about why that is.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Until more people in the U.S. start to remember that the customer is in the driver's seat[1] and absolutely refuse to disclose data which isn't relevant, privacy is lost.
[1] Try it, it's fun. I love going into a store, paying cash, and have them ask for my phone number, social, etc. That you "have to have it for your records" is entirely your problem, not mine. You can leave it blank, make something up, or I'll buy somewhere else. "Oh, you need my social for insurance? But I didn't give you any insurance information, and besides, I paid cash already. You're not planning to defraud my insurance company, are you?"
Looks like 8 minutes.
Wow, you really held yourself back this time.
Good job of combatting the sterotype of gun-packing Americans. Do you still think that amendment has any bearing on your lives today? Do you still think any problem or issue can be solved by a gun? Interesting.
Here's to hoping you grow up as a nation one day. Your neighbours to the north would certainly appreciate it.
Katz says people don't care. He's right, but why don't they care? Do they misunderstand the risks? Is the scope of the theft too grand for the imagination? Have they been swimming too long in the stream of media images that reassure us that corporations are benign, friendly -- big brothers, sure, but never Big Brother?
For a brief period in the 60s and 70s, cultural assumptions about corporate power shifted merely enough to allow such impertinent questions to be asked in the mainstream media -- and for fledgling regulation to emerge in legislatures. Not only was such regulation inadequate to the job of preventing the eventual corporate state, but in areas ranging across environmental, labor, fiscal, and energy controls, we've seen it eviscerated since the 1980s.
Here we are twenty years on. Corporate power is ever ascendant, with politicians from both parties its handmaidens. In this era, how would we save privacy? How can we hope to do that when we can't even stop corporations from polluting? From laying off workforces and merging like mad DNA to boost stock values? From annointing its own as our political leaders? The loss of privacy is of a piece with these other losses: it, too, has been sacrificed for the golden virtue of business efficiency -- for the faster track to profit.
Privacy, as Brandeis recognized, is a bulwark against power. You cannot discuss privacy absent an equation which also measures the power that threatens it; or put another way, any bulletproof vest is pointless without taking into account what kind of bullets might be fired at it. The executives have the best guns. And the vest-makers all work for the executives. Bad time to dress for battle! What are we going to wear?
Only a handful of the 100 most popular online stores give shoppers adequate privacy, according to the EPIC ( it's a Washington-based privacy research group). The group's research focuses on whether sites use profile-based advertising and whether they use cookies in their site operations, both incredibly controversial practices on the Internet. The also focus on retailers' compliance with "Fair Information Practices''--those are basically guidelines that provide basic privacy protection for consumers--which *none* of the companies in the survey addressed properly, according to EPIC.
It's a shame that the US doesn't seem like's it'll follow other nations' lead in the privacy issue-- legally enforceable standards of privacy are necessary to ensure compliance with Fair Information Practices, and new techniques for anonymity are necessary to protect online privacy. The ECIP released a report last year on December 17th, that found that 18 of the leading shopping sites did not post a privacy policy, 35 of the sites have profile-based advertisers operating on their pages, and 87 of the e-commerce sites use cookies.
EPIC also reported that many privacy policies are "confusing, incomplete and inconsistent."
Doesn't surprise me. The stated policies of most big shopping sites run the gamut from bad to atrocious. People should have the right to buy without being tracked and without having their personal information sold
--M.
And this is my problem... how?
Sounds like a problem for wannabe-privacy-invaders. My heart bleeds.
What about those of us who just don't want the "information" you "want to give" us, because your track record has demonstrated, time and time again, that you'll abuse it.
We don't like you. We don't trust you. And we will not cooperate with you.
Some states require that anyone who works near children go through computer and database checks for criminal histories, particularly sex offenses.
I believe this is ABSOLUTELY necessary for all child care facilities. Do you really want some sex offender, particularly a pedophile, playing with your kids? These checks take a couple of days and are not a big deal.
However, I'm in one of those states that do require it and I know first hand that a lot of daycares do not run this check. Mostly because they are so understaffed that unless the candidate looks seedy, they will most likely be hired. I could go into an entirely off-topic rant on how day care staff need to be paid more if there is ever going to be GOOD day care out there. But I won't go into that.
Check out Althea for a stable IMAP email client for X. Now with SSL!
The REAL privacy issue has to do with false (and occasionally deliberately false) or misleading information being circulated as absolute fact.
(If it's on the computer, it -must- be true... ...mustn't it?)
Everything you do leaves a paper/electron trail. Sometimes this is a good thing. Sometimes, it can be so shockingly abused that it's amazing anyone's still living in the US.
Have you =EVER= had any kind of parking ticket? That might not be bouncing round the police database any more, but any unscrupulous department could sell that data, without you ever knowing. Suddenly, you stop being employable. No explanation is ever given. After a small fortune is spent, you discover that some popular vetting company has turned your long-forgotten parking ticket into a "Current Police Record" and a "History of Illegal Activities".
Then, there are those times that personal names get confused and the wrong database entry is updated. Your local supermarket's computer decides you're dead. Your mail gets halted. Your credit cards are cancelled. Your bank accounts are frozen. Your driving licence is void. All automatically. And fixing one DB is pointless, because any automatic update'll pick the error right back up again.
Want to find yourself homeless? Just irritate a friend of someone you want a line of credit from. "Denied Credit" does -NOT- look good on a credit check.
Or maybe you want to work for a high-tech company involved in banking, credit, stocks or computer security. You'd better hope that your neighbor's brother's daughter's friend has never shaken hands with a drug dealer. It'll get onto your record the moment anyone does a paranoid background check. And once you're listed as a "Known Associate" of a "Potential Criminal Family", how long do you think you'll last in any top job?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Medical data, address data, demographic data, habit data, all of that is just data. Rest assured that if things continue as they are, all of these will continue to be abused. Do you think your insurance company might find it interesting to add to their profile about you that you like to visit microbrewwry web sites? (Hmmm... liver problems in the future in X% of cases.) Or add to their statistical models that as an avid computer game player, you are X% more likely to have heart and obesity problems?
As advertisements get more focused, won't your grocery store want to know what you're allergic to, or if you're lactose intolerant? Hope you're not too embarressed about these things (as some people are!) because now your grocery clerk knows about it (when you handed them your Personalized Coupon for 15% off Soybean Milk.), and who know who that bored gossiping jerk might tell? Think Microsoft might want to know if you visit Slashdot a lot? Here comes the onslaught of "Why NT is Better Then Linux" ads! Think the Federal government might just decide that frequenting Slashdot is a sign of dangerous computer skill? (Why this might be bad is left as an exercize for the reader.)
Privacy concerns can be fruitfully divided into discussions about the exact way your privacy is being violated, but at the present time with the present policies, all privacy violations are important.
In a way, the "lesser" ones are more important to Slashdot frequenters, because it's obvious how insurance company privacy violations affect people, and a lot of people will stand against it. The more subtle, but nearly as powerful taken to its extreme (where it is busily being taken to while we sit complacent) privacy violations of watching what sites you visit, what you spend, how often you spend it, where you spend it is far more difficult to understand.
Consider... if I knew your surfing habits precisely, how much would I know about you? If I read everything you ever posted? Would I be able to guess with some level of statistical certainty (which is fine with insurance companies!) that you have some disease? Dangerous political views? Personality profile? (Bet you didn't think of that!) How would you like to be rejected for a job because your Anger Index was 32 too high... back in 1992?
Privacy concerns are not overrated; indeed, the more you understand about computers, the more you really look to see what's already going on, and the more you extrapolate into the near future (to say nothing about the far future), the more you realize that they are seriously underrated... mostly because they are difficult to understand easily. Regrettably, they are still very real.
PS: As for the idea that companies need detailed data about you to function efficiently, that's just plain bullsh*t. What they need is an efficient infrastructure, good lines of internal communication, good management, all the traditional stuff. Only marketers think they "need" detailed data about all of their hypothetical future customers. (Note nobody complains about data companies need to function... surely Amazon needs to know where to ship that book to... while this could be worked around it's not really worth the effort at this time.)
If you don't give your info out, people don't have it. If you don't specify that it be kept confidential, it won't be, nor should it be.
Much easier said than done. Some things can't be kept out of the public record- such as deed information- I've bought 2 houses, and I have no choice but to have that information available. I don't mind if the local public utility uses it to send me a letter informing me of something they have to do in the right-of-way. On the other hand, this same database is *SOLD* by the state (I'm in the USA) to direct mailers, Mortgage companies, and so on. My vehicle registration information has been sold. I've asked for them not to, but the lists go out immediately after the registration, but the "opt-out" takes up to 8 weeks, and I have to opt out of each individual VIN registered to me, I'm given no option to blanket-deny any requests under my name.
You don't have to give your information out, but life can be pretty hard if you don't. Depending on your state, you could: not hold a driver's license; not hold real property; not have a bank account; not have a credit card.
If you ever get a chance to use Lexis-Nexis, look up information on yourself. It is pretty scary what can be found. There *should* be controls on who and how they can access my private information, and the information kept on me should be available *to me* so that I can review it. Unless there are laws for this, none of the data-aggregation companies will be accountable for the information they gather.
One thing to keep in mind is that most Americans don't necessarily look at privacy issues in the same way as many posters on /. do. I was shocked to see my fiance actually take the time to send in the warranty card on a $40 blender she bought. Her thinking (i.e. "it may break and I may need to get it replaced") was obviously not the same as mine (i.e. "we are going to get even more junk mail than we already get."). I'm of the opinion, if you have a receipt and your blender's broken and it's worth more than the cost to ship the damn thing to Cuisinart, then you can get it fixed. If you don't have a receipt it doesn't matter if you sent in the warrantly card or not. Okay, so much for that rant.
The next thing I noticed, however, was that all the personal information was incorrect. Salary was different, personal interests were different, etc. etc.. Her name and address were correct (i.e. if we needed a replacement blender, we could get it), but all the marketing info was BS.
I do this as a matter of principal; keep seperate web-based email addresses, my "salary" ranges from 0-10,000 to 250-500,000 depending on my mood at any given time, my job title similarly varies, etc. etc.
In other words, businesses may be getting more and more info, but is any of it any good. And, what is the cost of seperating the good info from the bad?.
I'd like to add one more point, however, any information we are forced to give accurately (for a driver's liscense, bank loan, etc.) should be strictly protected.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
There's a lot of paranoia amongst the tech-savvy populace of the net, and yet there seems to be a consistent failure to grasp the fact that current concerns about privacy are unwarranted and overrated.
Why is privacy overrated? After all, we live in a consumer society where we demand value for money and quality service from the corporations that provide everything we need to live, and information is the lifeblood of these ideals. Without reliable information corporations aren't going to be as efficient, and in a free market economy such as ours, this harms us all in the long run, far more than the trivial loss of privacy that comes from a company knowing how often you read /.
There are real privacy concerns out there which we should instead be addressing instead of whining about how companies compile online demographics. For instance, the need for privacy for medical information is paramount, and yet sorely lacking in America. With the increasing use of genetic technology in medicine, we either need safeguards to prevent insurance companies from declining "high risk" people, or a socialised health care system in which we can be guaranteedt treatment no matter what.
But the issue of online privacy is only really of interest to people who spent too much time online, and too little time in the real world.