it would be helpful if LEAs, private companies, insurance companies,
marketing companies, etc. defaulted to the mode of 'inform of potential
privacy issues first' rather than 'wait for the public to find out about my
privacy issue, then reform myself'. a friend of mine produced the recent 60
minutes II show on the railroad company performing genetic tests for carpal
tunnel syndrome on their employees -- without the employees knowing about
it. they were caught only because one of the employees' wives (an RN)
noticed more blood than usual for normal blood tests was being drawn from
each employee. now of course the railroad company listened to a company
promising a lot of BS with regards to genetic markers for CPS, but that's
only the sideline.
instead of BS legal ramblings about HIPPA, etc. etc. which are highly
targeted remedies for the better known breaches of privacy, perhaps we need
to start with one law that simply states 1) privacy is an absolute right
held by everyone; 2) privacy includes person, transactions, property,
biometrics, biomedical, etc. (insert everything here); 3) all activities
which potentially affect the right to privacy must be made known to the
person and consented to in advance -- AND all past breaches of privacy must
be made known. for example, personally i'd like to know:
1. who shares medical, insurance and marketing information about me to
whom? how often? where is the data kept? who has access to that data?
what happens to the data over time? how much income is produced by my data?
how much does it cost to maintain my data? (useful for establishing a value
of datum, and perhaps giving individuals an ability to sell their data if
they'd like to.)
2. how/when are the irs and leas informed of my bank, cash, credit and
other monetary transactions? what are the strict reporting rules? what are
the lax rules used by banks for 'suspicious activity'? who sees this data?
where is it stored? for how long?
3. if i'm under investigation (private or by LEA or by IRS, etc.) for any
reason, what information about me is ok to investigate? can someone contact
my past associates/friends? what about family? who does the investigating?
how is my information stored and handled?
4. etc. etc. for anything else i didn't include here.
the only legitimate tension i can see with the above approach is LEA. if we
want the LEA to perform the hollywood magic (tracking a person walking along
a street in NY via satellite or whatever) to catch bad guys, we will
probably have infringements of privacy (esp. during investigations.) BUT we
should know how/why/when these infringements take place, perhaps even if
that means we expose ourselves to greater threat from bad guys (haven't yet
thought this through though.) if we start with the above we might make at
least a more informed decision re: privacy vs. public safety. i believe i'm
finally beginning to better understand may's general perspective, though i
admit he may not agree with above approach.
phillip
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Matthew Gaylor
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 1:35 PM
To: Raymond D. Mereniuk
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Amtrak & The War On Drugs
At 9:41 AM -0800 4/25/01, Raymond D. Mereniuk wrote:
>If you book an airline trip you think nothing of giving a telephone
>number.
Not quite- I don't think it's nothing. I find it a gross and
serious privacy violation when I have to show ID and provide a phone
number when I fly. That's one of the reasons if the trip is under a
thousand miles, I'll just drive.
The government (any government) would love to track each and every
user of every transportation method be it a trip down the block or a
trip across the country.
And note that Amtrak did pull the DEA's direct access to their
ticketing system. They did so not because they knew they were in the
wrong, which they were, but rather the American public won't stand
for it.
Regards, Matt-
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