Obama's Privacy Bill of Rights: Just a Beginning

jfruh writes "Last night the White House hastily arranged a phone conference at which a 'Privacy Bill of Rights' was announced. It's an important document, not least because it affirms the idea that our data belongs to us, not to companies that happen to collect it. But it has a number of shortcomings, not least among them the companies aren't required to respect the rules laid out."

Comments

aren't required to respect the rules?

[CannonballHead]

So this is a Privacy Bill of Suggestions :)

Re:aren't required to respect the rules?

[girlintraining]

Privacy Bill of Suggestions

In this country, that's progress. However, we are still woefully lacking compared to the EU, where privacy is taken very seriously and most industries are required to disclose any and all personal data held and delete it upon request. And I'm not talking the "We just hid it from our homepage" delete either, but a bona fide "We don't have it anymore, anywhere, and if we do we could be sued for a very large amount of money."

It's stuff like this that has firmly convinced me that while the US might have been the origination point of the internet, it is no longer a leader, or even in the race, when it comes to either innovation or culture. My country's only political agenda is its GDP. It will do so even if it means feeding its own citizens to the wolves in the process... Anything to make a buck.

Re:aren't required to respect the rules?

[artor3]

Obama is president, not king. He can't force companies to do anything unless Congress first gives him the power to do so, and there's no chance in hell that the current Congress would give him the Heimlich if he were literally dying in front of them, let alone pass a bill at his suggestion.

Re:aren't required to respect the rules?

[DJRumpy]

This is an important step, although the summary makes this out to be the presidents fault. The fault lies with congress. The president cannot unilaterally create a bill, and make it a law, which is why this doesn't have the force of law behind it. If you want to point the blame, then the answer lies with congress, not the president.

Re:aren't required to respect the rules?

[icebike]

But he can unilaterally order the NSA to stop scanning phone calls and email and text messages and tweets.

Half the crap the private companies collect are at the behest of the government.
Everyone wants to blame Bush, but Bush's America was under attack. That was then. This is now. But Obama's America is still saddled with all the things Bush put in place and all the additions Obama put in place, and nothing has been scaled back.

Re:aren't required to respect the rules?

[icebike]

So tired of hearing how privacy is so highly upheld in the EU, while at the same time reading about government after government mandating the retention of every tweet, email, text, gps position of every single citizen. Give it a rest, will ya?

Re:aren't required to respect the rules?

[electron sponge]

There is a distinct difference between setting executive policy, and creating law. Educate yourself.

Right, there certainly is. The difference is, Obama can set executive policy, you know - the rubber meets the road stuff, without having any one else's say-so. He also has the bully pulpit and the almighty veto. He hasn't done anything that would safeguard our civil rights. In fact, he's worse on civil rights than his predecessor was. Dubya never assassinated an American citizen. Dubya never signed a bill that allowed for indefinite detention of American citizens by the military without any sort of due process. He probably would have, but the Democrats would have screamed bloody murder. My ears ache from the silence now.

Compare Candidate Obama c.2007 to President Obama c.2012, it's like some crazy brain-switch has occurred.The one who would end the wars, open up the government, and finally bring truth to the American people has been exposed as nothing but another cheap peddler of lies and also lies. So what are we to do? Vote for the opposing party's liar? As if Romney or Santorum would do any different? Meet the new boss, et cetera. If Ron Paul won, well, that would be something, but quite honestly we all know that that particular outcome wouldn't be allowed since it would end the whole military-industrial complex stranglehold on the executive and legislative branches.

So in summation, dear Anonymous Coward, let me encourage you to educate yourself on what really happens in Washington, and how little changes from administration to administration, and from Congressional session to Congressional session. The same vested interests buy off the small men and sociopaths that are put up for us to select, and we are told that if we don't vote for them we're wasting our vote. And we believe them, mostly because we're too self-involved with making sure we've a roof over our heads and food to eat. Oh and all the shiny things on TV, American Idol or whatever.

We have the government we deserve, until the point when we as a nation decide that we don't. It's a shit sandwich I wish more people could taste.

Re:aren't required to respect the rules?

[sg_oneill]

Half the crap the private companies collect are at the behest of the government.
Everyone wants to blame Bush, but Bush's America was under attack. That was then. This is now. But Obama's America is still saddled with all the things Bush put in place and all the additions Obama put in place, and nothing has been scaled back.

I shouldn't have to tell an american this, because I'm an australian and you are an american and you should know this. But show your damn constitution and founding principles some bloody respect.

Your own forefathers told your people that they should chose liberty over security. The attack you talk of, September 11, was sad, but could a single, albeit well executed, attack really justify the abandonment of centuries of american struggle?

George bush instituted the patriot act, invaded sovereign countries , drove away numerous liberty oriented allies including the very people, the french, who gifted you with the statue of liberty to symbolise your struggle, and put in place a chain of events that lead to catastrophic decline in the international respect America once yielded, because of a paranoic belief that the world was out to get you, and finally ruined a once vibrant economy by placing the interests of a wealthy elite over the interests of the citizenry and its liberties.

Barack Obama has been a deep disapointment, but by arguing that by deifying the most destructive president the united states has endured in living history you invalidate the very measures that one should judge a president.

Do not forgive Mr Obama, but god damn it, Don't forgive george bush. America is better than that. And if me, a man who has never visited your country can believe that, for fuck sake so can you.

I haven't been that impressed ...

[therealkevinkretz]

... with how his Administration (or the previous one, before you partisan bedwetters get all bunched up) has treated the *actual* Bill of Rights. So I don't have much hope for its respecting the goals of this one.

Let me know when...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. President,

Please let me know when you plan on respecting our privacy rights w/r/t warrant-less wiretaps and data-mining of personal information of American citizens by the NSA, FBI, and etc.

Otherwise your so-called "Privacy Bill of Rights" is just a shallow gimmick designed to score brownie points from the less informed and less attentive among us in the electorate.

Re:Let me know when...

[Ihmhi]

Otherwise your so-called "Privacy Bill of Rights" is just a shallow gimmick designed to score brownie points from the less informed and less attentive among us in the electorate.

Unfortunately, the "less informed and less attentive" far, far outnumber the rest of us.

We have two options. First is advocacy (make the people more informed and, hopefully, more attentive). This has worked pretty well in stopping at least some of the bullshit.

Secondly is getting people who are all about the whole "fair play" kinda thing - you know, respecting the Constitution and civil rights, acting for the benefit of the people instead of the benefit of corporations, etc. - actually elected into offices. That is much more difficult and I really wish someone with a fanbase would step up and leverage that social power towards getting elected and making a particular change in our government.

The people who are most able to affect such a change are the "leaders" - mayor, governer, president, etc. It is said that without compromise, nothing will ever get passed. Even the most honest politician will be stopped by an uncooperative legislature because he didn't sign off on their latest bad bill in order to get his good bill pushed through. The solution to this (that is rarely, if ever, resorted to) is twofold: first, directly tell the public that the city/state/national legislature is being a bunch of asshats and trying to stop this good thing from happening, and secondly to veto everything you don't like. (A lot of the votes in any given legislature are close enough that they are unlikely to pass a veto override).

We (as in those who use the Internet for more than lolcats and WoW) have a lot of power that we just need to get together and use to effect real change. Look at how we managed to stop SOPA and PIPA. Had the Patriot Act been proposed ten years later (instead of in the early 2000s when broadband penetration was still comparatively low), it would never have passed thanks to our efforts. We use it too often in a reactionary fashion instead of a pro-active fashion.

Please, someone who has the gusto to be honest step up and make a run for office. Any office. Try to be the mayor of somewhere insignificant like West Bumblefuck, Ohio, or Newark, NJ. Get the tech savvy people behind you, and use your connection with them to pull the populace out of its apathy. I'd do it if I thought I had a chance in hell, but I'm pretty sure I don't.

I'm more worried about YOU

[elrous0]

Hey Barack, how about a Bill of Rights that protects me against *your* NSA, CIA, and FBI reading my goddamned emails, listening to my phone calls, and asking my doctor how long my dick is without at least a court order?

Re:I'm more worried about YOU

[Sponge Bath]

...asking my doctor how long my dick is without at least a court order?

Most women would appreciate the government staying out of their vaginas as well. Unlike your joke about penis size, they have real intrusions to complain about on the privacy front.

Need more teeth

[the eric conspiracy]

It needs to apply to government as well as the private sector.

Companies?

[mmcxii]

I'll worry about that once we get a half ounce of respect from our so-called leadership that craps on our rights like it was their job.

Keep your eyes on both hands, boys and girls.

Leave Obama alone!!!

[Vinegar Joe]

I can't understand you people! President Obama is doing everything he can to help the people of the world and you whiners complain about your precious privacy! I hope he turns the NSA, CIA and FBI loose on you people and hunts everyone of you down and sends you to Gitmo. See how you like your precious privacy then!!!

Obama 2012!!!!

We DON'T need yet ANOTHER "Bill of Rights"!

[Anonymous Coward]

First, every website had to have its own "Privacy Policy."

Now, we need a federally-mandated one?

Anyway--a quick search reveals numerous existing "Bill of Rights," for example:

Voter's Bill of Rights
Patient's Bill of Rights
Donor Bill of Rights
Academic Bill of Rights
Landowners Bill of Rights
Taxicab Rider Bill of Rights (NYC; Ha! Figures!)
The eBook User's Bill of Rights
Visual Effects Industry Bill of Rights
Merchant Bill of Rights
Campus Sexual Assault Victims' Bill of Rights

* Stop calling anything but our original Bill of Rights a "Bill of Rights" -- to do so is to diminish its significance and uniqueness

* With so many "Bills of Rights," collectively they mean little--just like so many "Privacy Policies"

You can't just "keep it secret"

[F69631]

The era of massive data mining is beginning. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ And that's just your groceries, not your online behavior, which likely contains a lot more hidden clues.

When companies can decide to track and analyze your behavior in any way they want to, reasonably accurately predict things such as pregnancies, marriages, divorces, etc., and use it to their advantage, intentionally disguising all this from you... it's borderline absurd to say "people should just keep their secrets secret".

It's true that it's arguable whether this sort of behavior should be regulated (It's not "evil" that they just look what you've bought and try to predict your interests based on that) and if we decide to regulate it, we'll face a lot of problems... But it's quite odd to say that there shouldn't be a lot of public discourse around this subject (It's relevant to a lot of people and we already have some laws about ethical advertising and for a good reason) and just silly to say that people should take personal responsibility about how data miners figure out things they've never told anyone.

Bills of rights stop the government.

[Karmashock]

That's the whole point of rights. All the rights in the bill of rights are negative rights. They don't tell people they can do stuff they say the government can't stop them doing it.

So for example, the freedom of speech doesn't say I can stand on a soap box and sing show tunes backwards. It says the government can't stop me from doing that.

It doesn't stay you can have a religion or beliefs. It says the government can't stop you from having them.

So on and so forth. They're more about restraining the government.

So... Is that what Obama has done here? Has he said the government can't do certain things? Because I rather doubt it. And if he hasn't then he's not offering anyone rights so much as putting additional regulations on ISPs. That isn't a right. If he wants to give me a right then he can agree the government will leave the internet alone.

Real privacy

[Larry_Dillon]

First, how about giving email the same level of privacy as postal email?

The problem with these rules are that bad actors don't have to follow them. We need things like actual end-to-end encryption so companies and malicious individuals can't snoop. (see Code is Law, Lawrence Lessig).

Data ownership

[Dave Emami]

... our data belongs to us, not to companies that happen to collect it.

I know I'm in the minority on this, but I disagree with the underlying assumption that data belongs to you by virtue of being about you. Take it down to the simplest level: Adam sees Bob crossing the street. "Bob crossed the street" is the data, an observation that belongs to Adam (the observer) not Bob (the observed), by virtue of now residing in Adam's brain, which belongs to him, not to Bob. Everything else is just communication, storage, analysis, and technological assistance. It comes back to this fundamental point once you remove the obfuscating details, and Bob doesn't acquire the right to perform a partial lobotomy on Adam just because he doesn't like what or how much Adam knows about him, or whom Adam might tell, or what decisions Adam might make based on what he knows.

This assumes, of course, that Adam didn't violate Bob's rights in order to make these observations -- he didn't trespass by breaking into Bob's house, for instance.

Re:Data ownership

[randy of the redwood]

Actually, I agree. I'd go a bit further, and if we all agree that for these free services (gmail, facebook, etc.) that we are the product, not the service, we should be very careful about how much restriction we want to put on these providers.

I'd vote that they MUST tell us what they keep, so we can decide if that price is fair for the service received.

I'd vote against mandatory restrictions on what they can keep. I am willing to pay some level of privacy intrusion, just like I am willing to pay some amount of my attention by accepting advertisements in TV and web pages, so that I can avoid paying actual currency for many services these 'free' vendors provide.