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."

Comments

re: opt-out at nonprofits

[bscott]

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.

Re:Hypocrites

[Uma Thurman]

OK, I got more information, so I'm responding again. You're definitely wrong about the facts, and that should tell everyone reading about your dedication to the truth.

1) Courtney Love was not receiving an award, she was PRESENTING an award and making a speech about freedom of the press at the event.

2) The filmmaker RUSHED ONTO THE STAGE after her speech and started asking why she was talking about freedom of the press. Sure, it might have been an ironic choice, but WTF was the filmmaker doing rushing the stage? The moron was ejected, as he should have been.

You have been CAUGHT lying, which is typical for the right wing.

Re:Mixed Feelings

[Anonymous Coward]

Where exactly does it state anything in the Constitution about the "separation of church and state?"

The closest it gets to it is Article VI, Section III "but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.". Other than that, there is only the broadly worded first amendment...and it's worded "Congress shall make no law respecting an esthablishment of religion, or prohibiting the free excercise thereof...". This means that there cannot be any federal law regarding the establishment of religion (meaning congress can't declare an official religion or otherwise mandate partaking in any other "official" religous activities).

There is, however, information in the original (rejected) submissions which may suggest the spirit of the (now broad) first amendment. Check this out for some intesting reading/analysis on the subject.

ACLU opposed to Constitutional rights

[Anonymous Coward]

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".

Re:Good job

[elemental23]

What, like the KKK, for example? Or how about the numerous other free speech cases they've taken on, regardless of the positions of the people doing the speaking?

I suggest you read up a bit before making uninformed statements.