Re: Fair Credit Reporting Act and Privacy Act

At 11:28 AM 2/9/96, Duncan Frissell wrote:

>Look, the reason we hate the CDA is because it restricts speech.
>Restrictions on credit agencies gossiping about you are also speech
>restrictions.  If you are out in the world, people are going to talk about
>you.  The credit agencies are much easier to handle and less intrusive than
>the women were who talked about you while beating cloth on the rocks in the
>stream back in the old village.

Recall that in 1914 America adopted the "Gossiping and Busybodies Fair
Reporting Act," requiring all gossipers and busybodies to register their
planned speech acts with the typically-named Privacy Ombudsman (now
Ombudsperson). The modest registration fee of $75, a lot of money in 1914
of course, appears to have had a chilling effect on this market, as there
are few if any gossiping women beating clothes on rocks at the stream.

More seriously, what I find useful when thinking "There ought to be a law!"
thoughts is to imagine how it might be enforced against _me_. Creative
visualization. For example, while I get angry at times with TRW and
TransUnion like everyone else, I imagine a welter of laws about the keeping
of records and I imagine someone coming to *my* door and announcing that he
was there to inspect the contents of my hard drives to determine if I had
unlicensed data.

(Tim Philp's idea that this would only apply to "corporations" or
"businesses" (not clear which he means) misses the point. Am I, for
example, a business? Having such laws kick in at some well-defined
threshold would simply shift the nature of the information-gatherers...for
example, they's subcontract out the record-keeping to a raft of smaller,
linked entities. Then you'd have to prosecute people and companies for
accessing illegal data banks, etc.)

I am willing to support a few laws, about murder, theft, rape, etc., but
not busybody laws trying to control what information people collect.

If someone asks what the relevance to this list is of this issue, then they
really are as dumb as dirt, and as dumb as endangered dirt, too.

--Tim May

Boycott espionage-enabled software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1  | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

On Wed, 14 Feb 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

> (Tim Philp's idea that this would only apply to "corporations" or
> "businesses" (not clear which he means) misses the point. Am I, for
> example, a business? Having such laws kick in at some well-defined
> threshold would simply shift the nature of the information-gatherers...for
> example, they's subcontract out the record-keeping to a raft of smaller,
> linked entities. Then you'd have to prosecute people and companies for
> accessing illegal data banks, etc.)

	I think that the reason that this was not clear was because it was
not central to my argument. I was not "really" suggesting that only
corporations be included by this law. I do realise what a corporation is
and that some very small entities can be a corporation. 
	What my central thesis was that people who take information from 
me for one purpose, ie health care, hydro, internet provision, etc, 
should be required to keep this information confidential. If I detect a 
violation of this confidentiality, I should have an expectation of some 
legal recourse. 
	If I apply for a credit card and use it to buy a hockey glove (how
Canadian eh) I should not expect to be on the mailing list of every
sporting goods operation in North America! I should be able to expect 
that my doctor's files on me will be kept confidential. This is certainly 
an area where you cannot provide false information as medical records must 
be accurate to provide for future care.
	Again, I am not suggesting prior restraint. I simply want to sue 
the bastards who violated my expectation of privacy.

Warm Regards,
Tim Philp