Comments (58)

Paranoid yet? wrote on November 12, 2007 11:21 AM:

Just "Trust Us" seems to be the message. We'll decide what's best for you. But what's best for us is to keep that secret!

Don't ask... but tell. (your govt at work!)

Freewheelin' Freddie wrote on November 12, 2007 11:40 AM:

No problemo on the privacy thingamajig there Donny.... why don't you lead the way and give us your home phone number, SS#, address, drivers license number and sperm count. Just to show us your good faith.

bobh wrote on November 12, 2007 11:43 AM:

As soon as this son of a b gives me access to a webcam over his bed and in his bathroom i'll let him have my privacy rights. D-U buddy.

Doug Meyer wrote on November 12, 2007 11:47 AM:

It is and must be the citizens right to keep or to relinquish anonymity and privacy, not the governments call. Furthermore, Tonto was seen as an inferior person (Indian), therefore in no need of, nor any right to, protection or privacy.

ramjet wrote on November 12, 2007 11:56 AM:

Re: Lone Ranger

Tonto called the Lone Ranger "Kemo Sabe" which was actually a bastardization of the spanish "Quien no sabe". The writers were trying to come up with a phrase that meant "he who no one knows". Instead the phrase means "he who doesn't understand (or know)". Also Tonto in spanish means "stupid". Just fun (and ironic) facts.

bobh wrote on November 12, 2007 11:59 AM:

Is it any wonder that these idiots keep using phrasology from American tv instead of reasoned arguments? Conservatives don't reason.

gcs wrote on November 12, 2007 12:07 PM:

Why is it the people who invade our personal lives with the veiled threat, "If you have nothing to hide..." are all maniacs about keeping secrets of their own?

I agree with bobh. When Cheney and the rest of this criminal cabal broadcast their bathroom habits (public and otherwise) on the jumbotron in Times Square, then we can talk about MY privacy.

Michael wrote on November 12, 2007 12:08 PM:

This is an outrage. No, I will not change my view of privacy. No, I do not trust the government or corporations to protect my privacy. Are they f*cking kidding me?

By way of example, the lap-top that was "misplaced" by a VA official with millions of veterans personal information on it. Or how about the financial institutions constantly "misplacing" data storage devices with personal information of millions of customers on them. Or how about computer hackers. Or how about the phone companies allowing the government to copy all of our phone and internet communications without a warrant.

Basically, they should say what they mean, which is lets just get rid of the constitution. It really is just a quaint document and isn't followed by these criminals anyway. Let's just toss it.

EH wrote on November 12, 2007 12:08 PM:

Well this is really the crux of it, isn't it? He's floating a trial balloon to see if US citizens will willingly give up their existing rights to privacy.

Ellen wrote on November 12, 2007 12:12 PM:

I don't realistically think I have the ability to be anonymous (on a purely technical level). But, I do believe I still have the right to be free from government intrusion into my financial records, job record, medical history and generally personal life. I expect the government to protect me from intrusion from telephone and internet companies, as well as private industry seeking to make a buck off my address. Yet, this administration has turned these expectations on their head. It may in fact require the firm repudiation of these people by the vast majority of Americans to counter what is in essence government and corporate criminality. But, what is that going to take?

I heard the other day that people in London at the train station get photographed up to 20 times per hour. How often are we under surveillance here at home? I honestly began to contemplate whether I would wear a burka to simply protect my right to walk unknown among my fellow citizens.

Strange times indeed.

brendancalling wrote on November 12, 2007 12:14 PM:

This will make my blogging a lot easier!

Ordinarily, I transcribe my calls to politicians because I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to record our calls or not.

Now that the expectation of privacy is questionable, I'm going to record everything!

TheraP wrote on November 12, 2007 12:16 PM:

That laptop that was misplaced also had personal info about many providers on it. I know because I received notification to the effect that my personal info may have been compromised.

Within the same few months I received an apology from my state for accidentally releasing social security information where it was visible in the mail.

Privacy? Anonymity? Faith in Govt?

parrot wrote on November 12, 2007 12:17 PM:

Um, what about the Bill of Rights? And what about adding a new amendment to it about "privacy"? Currently, although it may not be the fact, legally, citizens of the EU have better privacy rights than American citizens--that's true from your medical records to financial information, street address and phone number, etc. The EU is "opt-in" and America has "opt-out" laws for this sort of thing for the most part. But, where is the "opt-out" part of spy on everyone and collate as much information at possible? Do I just have to wait for my death? And will it stop there?

Paranoid yet? wrote on November 12, 2007 12:18 PM:

Thank you, Ellen! For the burka idea! (I bet burka stock will rise!)

Michael Carpet wrote on November 12, 2007 12:22 PM:

"Tonto did the dirty work for free" is a line from Lyle Lovett's song, "If I had a Boat." Just saying.

broadsword wrote on November 12, 2007 12:26 PM:

I wonder how he'd be reacting if he'd been personally 'identity thefted'? Just par for the course when there's no privacy protections, right?

Señor Jaime wrote on November 12, 2007 12:29 PM:

The "Tonto did the dirty work for free" line comes from Lyle Lovett's song "If I Had a Boat." Apparently Mr. Kerr is a fan of Lyle's.

SmileySam wrote on November 12, 2007 12:43 PM:

The Telecoms and Internet Companys wear no mask, and every day they collect billions of bits of info on Americans. Be it there banking info, credit card numbers, where or what they shop for, and even which type of porn floats there boats. These non-masked enitys seem to be more than willing to sell this info to our gov. just as they do to marketing companys looking for phone numbers and addresses. On one hand this saves the gov. tons of money since they no longer need to correlate this data themselves since they can just purchase it. The ones wearing the masks are Cheney and Mullins, etc, hiding behind false premise they are there to protect us instead of control us. Tonto is ATT, Verizon, and they will soon be rescued by Cheney/the Lone Ranger with Immunity for doing what his Kemosabe told him to do. HiHo Silver Away with their civil rights....

TJ wrote on November 12, 2007 12:47 PM:

Since when do we let spys tell Americans what kind of privacy rights we have. This is a Constitutional issue, not one where we let the CIA tell us what Americans should expect their privacy to be.

Will Parker wrote on November 12, 2007 12:53 PM:

The Lone Ranger was "pure", representing the "old" privacy paradigm and those innocent times before 9/11 when we could enjoy now "quaint" priviledges. Tonto is a post 9/11 guy more worldly wise and more the one the Administration identifies with. He did the dirty work and since he is a "realist" doesn't need to hide behind a mask. The only problem is that Don Kerr and his crew are doing everything within their power to keep their dark deeds from the rest of us.

oleeb wrote on November 12, 2007 12:54 PM:

The words of this man are the words of oppression, tyranny and fascist totalitariansim. The test of our generation will be whether or not we care enough for the future and for our posterity to preserve all the freedoms given us for the generations to come. The terrorism that threatens us is not foreign, but domestic and must be resisted at every turn by every patriot who believes in our Democratic Republic.

I have absolutely no confidence that the Democrats in Congress have the will or the backbone to do this. It will be up to the regular citizenry to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United Staes and all the liberty and freedom our forefathers secured in the 18th century.

Anonymous wrote on November 12, 2007 12:55 PM:

What's frightening is the casualness with which he makes such statements.

All the more frightening because beyond some glittering generalities like "free speech," and "freedom to worship," the average person as no concept of civil liberties.

A social psychologist I know estimates that anywhere between one-third to one-half of any population would be perfectly happy to live under an authoritarian government. Gives them the chance to rat out neighbors they don't like.

Most resistance fighters in France in WW2 were ratted out by neighbors or jealous rivals or someone looking to settle an old score.

freepatriot wrote on November 12, 2007 1:08 PM:

uhm, Tonto and the Lone Ranger are FUCKING CARTOON CHARACTERS people

so you're telling me that an official of the United States Government used a FUCKING CARTOON CHARACTER to describe REAL WORLD ISSUES

does anybody else have a problem making real world decisions based on A FUCKING CARTOON CHARACTER ???

Thucydides Jr. wrote on November 12, 2007 1:12 PM:

I agree with Freddie above.

Lead by example, sparky.

We just want to make sure yer not some commie or al quaeda spy or anything. Just let us know your whereabouts at all times, never wear shoes to the airport, make a list of everyone you know and who THEY know, and make sure you get a big Blue 'R" tattooed on the back of yer neck. In case we need to put you in a "temporary" camp for a while to "sort things out". Oh, and carry 3 kinds of proof of citizenship at all times. Thanks bud. I'm sure you understand.

Fred M. wrote on November 12, 2007 1:20 PM:

"The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power...

Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion...

The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."

Henry A. Wallace, 1944

Scott wrote on November 12, 2007 1:39 PM:

I don't see his parallel with Amazon. I don't mind giving Amazon my credit card number, but Amazon doesn't have the power to send soldiers to my home and take away my freedom. The government does. Amazon also does not have a history of war and slavery. The Government does.

DallasNE wrote on November 12, 2007 1:40 PM:

I took the challenge and Googled my name. It did show up twice. Both times it was results from a local 10k run.

I don't know if it was this same clown, but I read about a government suggestion that the Telecom's set up offshore operations as a means around the current Constitutional protection.

Obviously, right and wrong never enters the equation with this group of thugs. It's always a matter of getting an attorney to write a paper authorizing whatever dastardly deed they wish to commit. Just find an angle and do it.

Harold Smith wrote on November 12, 2007 1:46 PM:

Thanks for the notice.

The United States of America WAS an interesting experiment in democracy.

biff diggerence wrote on November 12, 2007 1:53 PM:

Yes, I like the idea of a KerrCam.

I want to see and hear Mrs. Kerr at avalanche time.

Dennis wrote on November 12, 2007 1:55 PM:

The very same things that the U.S. government used to accuse Communist Soviets of doing to its citizens are now being done to American citizens by the U.S. government.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

JMOHR wrote on November 12, 2007 1:59 PM:

I always hate it when someone says that they do not care if their privacy is invaded since they have nothing to hide. However, what do they mean by nothing to hide?

1. Obviously some criminal act. We all would agree that that would be something to hide.

2. What about religion? We all know that given enough of a data base, we can figure out the religion. Do you really want your religion to be out there for someone to find? A potential employer may not like you being Jewish, muslim or evangelical. Indeed, the government is already picking this up for airline passengers. Just think when you go for a job and someone decides that they just don't like those red-neck evangelicals or liberal atheists and deny you a job.

3. What about political affiliation? We have already seen cases where the internet was used to determine political affiliation for appointment to career civil service positions. We have also seen people fired over a bumper sticker expressing a political view. Indeed, at DoJ one could be denied an appointment to a career civil service job because they were not Republican enough. In this hyper partisan world, do we want to have our political affiliation out there. In Ohio, information provided by private firms for tax enforcement purposes included political affiliatio

4. How are we protected from mistaken information? Just ask that Canadian citizen who was sent overseas for extraordinary rendition and tortured for three months because of a mistake over his name. Then there was that German nationa and that attorney out west who was picked up for the Spanish train bombing. Having nothing to hide did nothing for these individuals.

5. What about information maliciously planted by others? I was an Air Force JAG, everytime that we busted someone as a drug dealer or user, we would put the thumb screws on to get the names of other druggees. We got good names and we also got stupid speculation and we got people settling old scores. We did a fairly good job of sorting them out. However, it was hell for the wrongly accused. Some were forced into drug rehab and ran into that brick wall: "I did not do drugs" = denial. Some were wrongfully discharged administratively. (Lower standard of proof.) Think about some of the questioning done by the FBI after 9/11 and how little it took to become a subject. Look at all those on the no fly list.

6. What may not seem bad now, may later become a real problem. Think of all those citizens who supported the Soviet Union during WWII. They were our allies. The government encouraged aid even on an individual basis. The McCarthy years saw those who had attended meetings of legitimate groups during WWII being treated as traitors. Think of it another way, those who have supported torture during this war could well end up being seen as war criminals during a very liberal administration.

cptspalding wrote on November 12, 2007 2:09 PM:

I didn't hear Mr. Kerr's full speech so its hard to say what all was in it and whether or not it contained anything that really represented an official policy statement. But I actually agree with the statements in the excerpts quoted (except the Lone Ranger thing -- who knows WTF that was about). Anonymity and privacy are technically two different things, and a set of laws, rules and oversight over things protecting people would be a good thing. Additionally it is not that hard to link together bits of information and be able to identify someone, and people.

But the problem is that you can't trust this administration to act in good faith. They've lost the privilege of having the benefit of the doubt on these things.

As a result of their abuse of powers and general disregard for human rights (see Geneva Convention, Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus) this important discussion about privacy won't happen. And like it or not, 21st century rules on privacy and anonymity are going to be very different from 20th century rules (much less 18th century ones that the founding fathers operated under). We need to confront it now otherwise governments (and businesses) will define the terms for us.

*Sigh* Maybe we can talk about it in 2009.

Dennis wrote on November 12, 2007 2:15 PM:

Am I wrong, or does this guy sound proud of what he's saying and doing to pry into the private lives of American citizens?

"JMOHR wrote on November 12, 2007 1:59 PM: I always hate it when someone says that they do not care if their privacy is invaded since they have nothing to hide."

These folks who have nothing to hide seem not to understand that the question is not what do you have to hide, but how much intrusion are you willing to let the government have into you private affairs?

I don't want any. Having learned from history, government is always abusing its priviledge (and no one in this administration will ever pay a price for that abuse).

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

john allison wrote on November 12, 2007 2:19 PM:

Tonto was a minority. He didn't really exist as a person, so he didn't need a mask to hide his identity. The "precious" majority culture should let go of it's narcissistic attachment to its value on special sense of self for each of individual. As far as the Empire is concerned, we're all Tonto's.

Barry Champlain wrote on November 12, 2007 2:23 PM:

It was bad enough when Life In General became a matter of having a credit card, or perishing. But most of us adapted to the paradigm of which the economic machers wanted us to be a part.

After they got over that hump of confidence with us, they came back and told us that "Technology has influenced social interaction to such a point where people don't blanch at giving Amazon their credit card numbers..." (etc.)

So in other words, the trust they forced us to give them initially is now the rationale for removing the rest of our privacy rights?

One problem with that: the credit card industry adapted fast and responsibly, to the crisis of identity theft. If your cc number is stolen (as mine has been several times), you simply fill out the form, they change your account number, your credit rating isnot impacted, and you are not held responsible for the person who flew to Ireland on your Visa card (and the process begins on the phone, so the it's expedited for the customer's benefit).

So there are really no negative consequences for tossing your cc number around the world, in the course of a day.

On the other hand...

I have also dealt with voice recognition systems, in the course of doing business. Perhaps "I'm sorry--- but I didn't understand what you just said" sounds familiar?

Ask yourself: do you really want THAT SAME TECHNOLOGY to be used to monitor your daily, private phone conversations, in order to make a fuzzy calculation about whether or not you're discussing committing a terrorist act with your drinking buddy, Bob?

And... is this not just a bit worse than giving out your credit card number to strangers?

THIS IS ALL A PHONY-BALONEY ARGUMENT.

Carolyn wrote on November 12, 2007 2:34 PM:

I just called Don Kerr and we discussed what he said.
We agreed to disagree. He suggested my transparency was not a bad thing and that we did not really know what they were doing (per Mark Klein evidence) at AT&T. He thought I'd just read a newspaper account. I informed him I had watched MK before the congress and if (as he, DK, suggested) that was just one side, perhaps NSA could become transparent and give us their side.
I must admit, I am afraid of repercussions.

JMOHR wrote on November 12, 2007 2:35 PM:

We should remember that much of the problem arose with technological advances. Quite frankly, it was not too long ago that giving a credit card number to a store or to an E-retailer was met with the full expectation of privacy.

It was the advent of moder data mining techniques that created a market for selling data to other corporations or to government agencies that created this problem. Now, why should I have granted a license to any company having my credit card number? Legislatures or the courts could have provided that the unique identifying number on the credit card was protected from use by the card issuer. Guess who had all the money to buy influence when these issues came up?

JMOHR wrote on November 12, 2007 2:36 PM:

We should remember that much of the problem arose with technological advances. Quite frankly, it was not too long ago that giving a credit card number to a store or to an E-retailer was met with the full expectation of privacy.

It was the advent of moder data mining techniques that created a market for selling data to other corporations or to government agencies that created this problem. Now, why should I have granted a license to any company having my credit card number? Legislatures or the courts could have provided that the unique identifying number on the credit card was protected from use by the card issuer. Guess who had all the money to buy influence when these issues came up?

Barry Champlain wrote on November 12, 2007 2:36 PM:

Just had a startling macro thought on what I've written, above:

I just spent ten paragraphs, debating the "counterpoint" side to, "Should the government monitor the phones of every American?"

I can't imagine even having that debate in America 10, 15, 20 years ago. I think they're going to go after the older ones of us, first, because we're the ones who remember when the mere topic itself would have been too outrageous, even to take seriously.

Not sure thirty- and fortysomethings possess the same level of intolerance for pure totalitarianism, that was instilled in my generation... by the same government, actually... back when they made us duck and cover because the lousy rotten SOVIETS, dont'cha know..!

Kenneth Ashford wrote on November 12, 2007 2:40 PM:

This administration is the most closed and secretive in history (dodging subpoena, abuse of the "executive privilege doctrine, etc.), and now we're being told as citizens that we need to "adjust" our views of privacy?

What do they call it when a government (a) operates in secrecy without regard to public interest and oversight and (b) overtly works to chip away and invade the privacy of its citizenry?

Not "America", that's for sure.

I have always had little use for the "government is coming to get me" libertarian nutjobs, but if trendlines persist, history might paint them as the most prescient of political groups.

4th Amendment wrote on November 12, 2007 2:40 PM:

If that guy is having a hard time living up to the oath he took as a federal official, then he and the other likeminder neo-fascists working for Bush should tender their resignations.

TheraP wrote on November 12, 2007 2:43 PM:

Barry,

I notice that my dad is even more incensed about being asked for personal info than I am (40 years out of college). And he's a republican!

So, yes, it's horrifying really. With some things my dad tends to just follow the media, but when they want his personal info, he would never accept the govt saying to "just get used to it."

So, you're right. The older generations keep info much tighter to the vest. And young people, for example, don't consider that what they put on Face Book today will be out there forever!

moondancer wrote on November 12, 2007 2:45 PM:

You know the worst thing is that it is a diminishing return for the loss. These guys aren't going to catch anybody with this. For fuck sake they had the 9/11 guys in custody before and couldn't get that right. Grab all the intelligence in the world, but without intelligent people to look at it in a timely manner, its useless.

I have no confidence that they are able to use this information to protect me. I think this is just a mil/indus complex scam to steal money and develop dossiers on people that could threaten their power.

Paranoid yet? wrote on November 12, 2007 2:49 PM:

moondancer is right. it's not for our benefit, but for theirs.

mbbsdphil wrote on November 12, 2007 2:56 PM:

Nobody seems to remember that pesky line in their oath of office, "to protect the Constitution" against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Privacy. From an NSA hacks perspective, that's a joke. It's what they spend all day destroying; their jobs would be much easier without it. Just as a cop's job would be easier without judges, juries, rules of evidence, the Constitution: all those pesky things which keep their conviction rate down.

The commentator is right: Kerr needs another line of work. First, because he admitted the obvious, which, in an intelligence official, makes one wonder what his real game is. Second, he believes the obvious, which makes him unfit for a policy making role.

I especially liked Kerr's example, which should make everyone sit up and NOTICE, because he means it: Giving Amazon your credit card number.

I don't think anyone reasonably believes that doing that gives Amazon - or its contractors, agents or service providers or the Government - the right to know every other use of that credit card for the past three or next three years. It doesn't give them the right to my credit history or my mortgage or what I do with every other credit card or credit transaction. It gives them a right to process a single transaction.

But of course, that reasonable citizen's expectation is wholly at odds with today's credit world. Because credit rating agencies and data miners do exactly that, and make billions at it, without government regulation or oversight, and out of sight of everyone whose data they are mining.

The EU regulates the information that can be collected, for how long, and for what purpose. It allows an individual access to it and an opportunity to review and correct it. The US goes to enormous lengths to avoid doing precisely that.

Mafalda Hopkirk wrote on November 12, 2007 3:05 PM:

Re Amazon having your credit card number. You can revoke that at any point. Or you can call the credit card company and ask them to reassign a new number.

But we can't go and get another social security number. And that number attaches to our bank accounts. It attaches to a Medicare number, when we get there. It attaches to pay checks and other financial info.

Zones of privacy are already limited in so many ways. And it's infuriating!

Karen Johnson wrote on November 12, 2007 3:09 PM:

He is saying you only have to hide if you are the "bad guy".

KillMeForThinking wrote on November 12, 2007 3:11 PM:

As dangerous and ULTIMATELY punishable is the Presidential Directive signed by Bush on May 9th, NSPD-51, and HSPD-20. He gives the president dictatorial capacities that he "may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens." in the event of an "emergency". The administration belongs in a defense chair in the World Tribunal Court at the Hague, just as Europeans are saying. He also wants to merge Canada, the U.S., and Mexico into one nation and replace the dollar with the gold backed "Amero" which you can buy online right now. They are minted in Colorado. Donald Kerr should be eavesdropping and preparing to prosecute those in power who set the nation up for this fantastical dictator scheme designed to facilitate corruption while making inefficient government. Why has Laura moved across the street from Blair House? Booze.

JMOHR wrote on November 12, 2007 3:14 PM:

mbbsdphil: Unfortunately, you have no legal right to your credit card number. Why do you think that you get all that junk mail? The credit card companies sell the information including your name and address to other firms for a profit. It is big business and has been going on for years.

There were two ways that we could have gone on the issue as a society. One would have been to treat the information as private to the individual. The other way would have been to treat the information as belonging to the credit card company. The US chose the second route. It is a perfect example of a slippery slope.

First, information is sold as to broad categories of sales, then geographic and finally individual dossier. No one objects up front - businesses lobby and prevent protective legislation. One strong argument is that there was simply insufficient technology to justify these Orwellian dreams of tracking every one in our society are paranoid. Later objections are met with the law, nothing prevents the use of the credit card company's property and it would cripple a multi billion dollar industry. The government then buys information from a non regulated business that would have required a subpoena or search warrant.

We hear the same about all sorts of proposed changes to our rights. The Patriot Act meant to stop foreign terrorists used to gather financial information without warrant on strip clubs allegedly bribing local businesses. Administrative search warrants for library records and God knows what else. Now, searches for telephone and internet transmissions based upon a general process approved by a secret court. Now they want an internal department review and nothing more.

REP wrote on November 12, 2007 3:24 PM:

Kerr's parable has the Lone Ranger representing America, and Tonto representing the Bush and Cheney Republicans.

Barry Champlain wrote on November 12, 2007 3:39 PM:

Thera:

You say: "young people, for example, don't consider that what they put on Face Book today will be out there forever!"

You know... I've heard that expressed A LOT! It seems to be a point of shock, among older but fairly hip individuals, that their kids would be so flip about splaying it all Out There.

I still believe that, SS numbers and cc numbers notwithstanding, the 6-alarm fire here is the probable use of fuzzy logic systems, to monitor every phone call henceforth ever made by you or me. And you know what terrorists WE are!

What the hell do these people want to KNOW, about our stinking little lives?? My guess is when they DON'T find that most Americans want to blow up government buildings in the name of Allah, they'll just start detaining and interrogating us, en masse, based on "trigger phrases" that their fab dope technology picks up, while we're talking to our BFF's.

I go into apoplectic shock, when I think that the rest of the country ISN'T in apoplectic shock, about this.

mbbsdphil wrote on November 12, 2007 3:40 PM:

But, of course, there's no inherent reason why financial industries should make huge sums with "our" credit information. Just as there's no inherent reason that AT&T's cable ops should "own" and commercialize my personal, individual viewing details, making billions from such information beyond what its subscribers already pay them.

As Krugman's Conscience of a Liberal suggests, politics and the law have enormous influence in determining winners and losers. The idea that it is a "natural" outcome is as much bunk as Social Darwinism or Intelligent [sic] Design. Government and industry prefer that we have no choice in the matter, much less a right to demand different outcomes.

Another choice regarding personally identifiable information - which the Europeans have made - would be to regulate or disclose its use, or prevent its use without specific, informed consent.

That would pit Wall Street against middle America, Santa Anna against Davey Crocket. Worth the fight, I think.

mbbsdphil wrote on November 12, 2007 4:18 PM:

About photo-surveillance in the UK, I've heard the average - average - tourist in London is photographed 3,000 times in two weeks: street corners, taxis and buses, roadways, bank ATMs, lobbies, airports, museums, you name it. Formerly, the cameras were fewer and not always operating. With today's fractional cost for digital imaging and data storage, it's best to assume that all cameras are recording.

Helen Rainier wrote on November 12, 2007 4:26 PM:

What Congress MUST do:

1. Make it illegal to sell the personal data of ANYONE for profit.

2. Make all businesses STOP requesting your SSN for ID purposes. That is NOT the intended use for the SSN.

3. Make all Bulk Business Mail "opt-in" only. In other words, an individual needs to specifically ask or request information be sent to them through the US Mail stream.

4. Make all those "legal agreements" clear and precise and written in layman's English instead of legalese so that you truly understand WHAT it is you are agreeing to.

5. An option to "opt-out" of being placed on any mailing lists automatically by signing a legal agreement on the form itself.

6. Bar all government entities from selling personal information to telemarketing agencies. In the State of Wisconsin, the Department of Motor Vehicles routinely sold access to its list of people with driver's licenses, those who applied for license plates amongst others. That is not ethical. Citizens have a right to expect that a government agency that provides the ONLY service (such as issuance of a driver's license or license plates)will safeguard that information.

I have done nothing illegal that I am worried about being revealed about me, but it is the point that government thinks it has the right to do so when they refuse to be honest with us and forthright and open.

Until they "practice what they preach" they need to STFU.

anon wrote on November 12, 2007 5:02 PM:

I'm willing to say "Okay, fine, yup, the game has changed. I'm willing to give up certain privacy rights but the government has to, at the same time, give citizens the right to deep oversight, and general transparency, of any government programs or offices that collect and use previously private information."

Really, I'm willing to change but the government's approach to transparency and oversight has to change as well. (No, I know that's not a possibility under this administration.)

I don't understand why transparency and oversight aren't at the heart of the Dems campaigns this years. I think, for the most part, people understand these issues and some freaking leadership--hey, why doesn't Obama start mentioning the EFF in his speeches?--would go a long way.

Anonymous wrote on November 12, 2007 6:26 PM:

Curious: Anonymous people are presumed guilty until proven innocent. When does the US government plan to identify themselves other than, "Anonymous Government official."

If US citizens cannot be anonymous, then neither can US government officials.

jollyroger wrote on November 13, 2007 6:53 AM:

"Do you have something to hide?" is a trick question.

It is asked in the context of criminal/terrorist investigation, thus implying that only information relating to and dangerous to the c/t is sought.

But that's not how it works.

So, yeah, you bet I have something to hide.

1. I'm cheating on my spouse

2. I sometimes nap in my car when I'm out of the office on business calls.

3. I frequent topless bars more often than a pious man should.

4. I have a silly phobia about birds--they make me piss in my pants, and I'm going to group therapy for it, but meanwhile it's humiliating and I don't want anyone to know, but I buy adult diapers from time to time.

I could go on.

But, you say, what governmental agency could possibly have a use for such titillating tidbits?

Why, the one that wants to extort me for a false accusation, or a political vote (hat tip to Dianne Feinstein...) or merely to turn me into an informant for future reference (eg, Stasi, KGB, HUAC, pick your era and despot).

Dee Illuminati wrote on November 13, 2007 8:43 AM:

I guess if I can restate the statement;

"If a neighbors blinds and shades are open, then it is permissable to take photos and make them public domain especially if you don't provide their names and address's."

What I find galling is that the above assertion is regarded as false and the act is illegal, and the assertion on the part of the government is claim legal and there is no recourse to a legal challenge.

I think a large dissatisfaction reflected in polls is as a result of these 'animal farm' legal assertions.

When you reduce any of these arguments with a Reductio ad absurdum (Latin: "reduction to the absurd") or apagogical argument you find at the root of it as Joseph Biden said: 911, a noun, and a verb.

The GOP just doesn't seem to get it, nor will they get my support at the polls, in contribution, or support online.