Slashdot Mirror
Is Your Neighbor a Democrat? There's an App For That
theodp writes "ProPublica's Lois Beckett reports that the Obama for America campaign's new mobile app is raising privacy concerns with its Google map that recognizes one's current location, marks nearby Democratic households with small blue flags, and displays the first name, age and gender of the voter or voters who live there (e.g.,'Lori C., 58 F, Democrat'). Asked about the privacy aspects of the new app, a spokesperson for the Obama campaign wrote that 'anyone familiar with the political process in America knows this information about registered voters is available and easily accessible to the public.' Harvard law prof Jonathan Zittrain said the Obama app does represent a significant shift. While voter data has been 'technically public,' it is usually accessed only by political campaigns and companies that sell consumer data. 'Much of our feelings around privacy are driven by what you might call status-quo-ism,' Zittrain added, 'so many people may feel that the app is creepy simply because it represents something new.'"
It is creepy, and a good reason not to register as a member of either party...no matter how much you may want to vote in the primaries.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
> Harvard law prof Jonathan Zittrain said the Obama
> app does represent a significant shift. While voter
> data has been 'technically public,' it is usually
> accessed only by political campaigns and companies
> that sell consumer data.
"But the plans were on display..."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a flashlight."
"Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice, didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Right. Yes voter records are accessible to the public but so are criminal records and those
of sex offenders. Even the wages and salaries of federal employees are available online
for anyone curious enough btw.
I wonder what a given neighborhood would look like if we overlaid sex offenders and
criminal records with Obama voters. This is entirely feasible and entirely legal as well.
But yes for everybody else who didn't have the misfortune of living 30 years in a communist
country, commies love to use peer pressure. Right now they're planning to show who is
using how much electricity in a given neighborhood and giving discounts if _everybody_
reduces their energy use in a street. Yes, if only one neighbor exceeds the set quota
everybody 'loses' and everybody will know who is 'responsible'. Expect your neighbors
to come to your door and bitch at you.
The previous method, back in the days before all this social networking stuff: Republicans tend to keep their shades drawn, even though they really don't have anything that would be worth hiding. Democrats ought to draw their shades, but don't.
I am officially gone from
This data is not 'creepy' when company's are using this data privately for profit, however when it's expressed publicly in a not-for-profit way it's a privacy concern. God bless America.
...shows the private addresses of all politicians with a range of little icons over their houses showing what kind of scandals they have been involved with and what organisations they have been members of.
This database been used by Choicepoint for years for Gerrymandering. When you read that a GOP mob will be challenging black voters in district X, it's because Choicepoint has worked out that district X is the best chance of swinging the vote by barring black voters. Ethnicity they mine from one database, the voting preference from this database.
Remember the voter cleansing list? Crossed referenced with Choicepoint (DBT as it was then). The list of mostly Democrats purged from the Florida electoral roll for having similar names to convicted felons in other states. Where do you think they got the list of Democrats from to filter by??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Central_Voter_File
This data should be private, perhaps showing people the public data about them will finally help it be kept private.
Who you vote for is your business, and nobody elses.
Yet another way Democrats and Republicans have devised to drive voters to register (and vote) as independents. Let's hope this trend keeps up!
You can't simultaneously thing wikileaks and government transparency are good things and this is a bad thing
The hell I can't. Government should be transparent, not people.
Also, there's a similar analogy to the difference between a six-shot revolver and an automatic weapon. The balance between openness and privacy was struck when the data was hard to get. Now that it's so easy to get en masse, that balance needs to be re-struck.
If all you see is red and blue, I'd say it's time to get new glasses, metaphorically speaking...
If you start hating someone just because of one thing they believe, then the only person that has a real problem is you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That was the argument of the Texas Democratic party in Smith v. Allwright. That it was a private event and therefore they had every right not to allow blacks to participate. The supreme court found that primaries are a compelling part of the American electoral system and therefore not entirely private matters.