Well, the TSA does have an online listing of the electronically registered membership on its website. It's a password protected site. Jerry. In a message dated 12/14/2009 2:05:11 A.M. Central Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
All this talk about electronic vs. paper publication of the Texas Caver reminds me of a related issue: Is it safe to give your email address to TSA? For years TSA has been asking for our email addresses on the membership renewal forms, and I have been refusing to give them mine. During this same period, however, I have been providing my email address (along with mailing address and phone numbers) to the UT Grotto for publication in their "UT Grotto Phone List". Why is it that I have felt that my email address was sufficiently safe with the UT Grotto but not with TSA? The answer is that the "UT Grotto Phone List" is published only in paper form, where email addresses and other personal information is not likely to be harvested by spammers, telemarketers, search engines, etc. I don't have that kind of confidence in TSA, however, because for years, I've heard various people within TSA advocating expanded use of digital publication without adequately considering the negative consequences of what they are advocating. Most disturbing has been the proposal I've heard from time to time that TSA publish its membership list information electronically, perhaps by placing it on a web site. This might be cheap and convenient for TSA to implement and for TSA members to use, but it also could make our personal information much more vulnerable to automated harvesting by those who would use it in ways we never intended. Once our email addresses, cell phone numbers, etc. have been harvested from a digitally published list, there would be no cheap and convenient way to undo the damage. How can we be confident that the continuing push towards digital publication within TSA will not lead to ill considered digital publication of email addresses and other information vulnerable to automated harvesting? Rod
