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ACLU Reacts to Privacy Concerns
nettle writes "Back in September I began a series of commentaries about one person's experience signing up as a new member of the ACLU. I'd used their website to sign up, and was shocked to find my mailbox full of junk parcels, flyers, and personalized merchandise from dozens of nonprofit organizations like People for the American Way, Sierra Club, Americans for This, Americans for That, yadda yadda. I complained to the ACLU, having suspected that they had given out my contact info. So I wrote about the situation on my Nettle.com blog here and here and began a public correspondence with Anthony Romero, Exec Dir of ACLU, and Nadine Stossen, President of ACLU. Nadine promised they'd take action. I told her if they fixed the signup page on ACLU's website so that people could opt-out of ACLU's personal-info-sharing, I'd renew my membership. Well, Nadine kept her end of the bargain. Here's a screen capture of their new signup page. And my check to the ACLU goes out in today's mail! Blogs DO make a difference."
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don't piss off the hippies, they might get violent.
This is the same group that picks and chooses which parts of the Bill of Rights to fight for, and which to fight against (their pro-race-quota stance contradicts the Equal Protection clause)
In regards to the 1st Amendment, they often fight against free speech if the speech of the individual is "religious" and the person is a government employee (last time I checked, the Bill of Rights had no exemptions for government employees).
I'm glad a large organization like the ACLU reacted like that!
:-\
:-)
Unfortunately I still disagree how they constantly persecute mainstream religions and expressions there of as well as minimize the majority to accomodate the minority. Their track record has really turned me off to them to the point where I consider them one of our problems on The Hill.
I think I threw in more than two cents worth on this one.
Sam
I've mentioned this story in the past, but it bears repeating here - even with good intentions, sometimes opt-out doesn't make much difference...
I worked for several years at a well-known nationwide nonprofit charity, maintaining a donor database with an address list in the low 6 figures in length. For a variety of reasons, we had a lot of ongoing technical problems, especially when it came to address sharing with other nonprofits - long stories aside, there came a day when I was digging into the workings of an update query which effectively implemented the "Don't share my address" checkbox on the donation form. Turns out, for at least the past 3 years (starting prior to my tenure), it had been set up backwards. When I fixed it, some 16,000 records got updated... (and who knows, maybe the correction eventually propagated around the nonprofit community's mismash of list-exchange systems??)
My point is, once your information gets out, consider it out for good. Everything from fuzzy wording of a privacy agreement to out-and-out unethical behavior (either as company policy, or due to a disgruntled employee or hacker attack) could cause your data to go where you don't want it to - or, it might just be a technical glitch somewhere deep in an under-tested program handled by an under-trained user.
Perfectly Normal Industries
It shouldn't be opt-out in the first place, the checkbox on the membership page should be unchecked by default. If I want marketing guff, I'll ask for it thanks.
I get mail from groups like the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, the Democratic and Republican Party, etc.
Looks like most nonprofit groups that rely on donations share addresses.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
Blogs DO make a difference.
Bad press has always prompted organizations to right their wrongs, especially guys like the ACLU whose entire reasons for existence are moral in nature. I think you would expect them to change their ways if you point out their hypocrisy in a public forum, regardless of whether it's in a blog, a newspaper, or a billboard. This is by no means a "win" for blogs, it's just common sense.
Just tired of people thinking "blogs" are something revolutionary. Nobody really cares.
rooooar
> the checkbox on the membership page should be unchecked by default.
That was supposed to be the case in our database as well. Again - good intentions, backed by inadequately trained people...
Perfectly Normal Industries
What is the saying..... fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
This just goes to prove how the ACLU is opposed to Constitutional rights that do not fit in with its ideology.
Imagine if someone went through the sophistry of "Free speech is not a right of the individual, but is the right of a well-organized media collective".
...is when you donate 10 bucks to an organization and then they proceed to blow that ten bucks on sending you keychains, notepads, organizers and calendars every few weeks for the indefinate future. I wish there was a check box like "take this $10 and be grateful and please limit your correspondence with me to ONE time per year of your choosing".
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Now see if you can get the ACLU to stand up for the rights of anybody who isn't black, female, gay, transgendered, or otherwise politically correct.
stupid fucking troll