Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The Most Subtle Intrusions...
One of the most common sayings in legal circles has often been, "Everybody hates lawyers until they need one." Heard of that one before? Your rights are still important and they do matter. Especially in an age where the Federal government will play a more active role in our lives for sometime to come. But technology never moves as fast as the law. Often when the law does try to catch up the result is often an overreach where laws end up unleashing a whole host of unintended consequences.
But still it does seem that we do have fundamental rights. But the right that was never expressly articulated in the constitution but we always assumed to be there before us happens to be our right to privacy. Do we have a right to privacy?
That's becoming a more powerful question now that the government has been embracing the full power of computers. That clash of technology and law is also starting to make a lot of people nervous and angry. In particular one guy who recently took offense. Why was that guy important? Because he sits on the Supreme Court...
In January of this year Justice Antonin Scalia...
http://www.oyez.org/justices/antonin_scalia/
Gave a speech to the Institute of American and Talmudic Law...
http://www.iatlaw.org/
And in that speech...a full text isn't available online...he was quoted about the issue of privacy. Here were some of his remarks that the media zeroed in on which I will paraphrase and then link,
"In the digital age privacy rights should be distinguished between confidential data such as medical records and information that might be personal but isn't hard to know"
...
http://www.privacylives.com/associated-press-scalia-speaks-on-digital-privacy-at-nyc-conference/2009/01/28/
Now this is important when it comes to the Internet because this guy could decide who has access to what the public or government can learn about you. In particular Justice Scalia was not concerned about such intrusions as Internet tracking, knowing what groceries he buys saying,
"I don't think it is a secret what I buy, unless it's shameful."
Concurring Opinions had an overview of his vision of privacy...
http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/01/justice_scalias_1.html
Now that is an extraordinary position. Because technology today is driving a boom regarding to privacy. A bunch of groups have been offering services that use databases. Databases with information about me and you. And they gather this information to like a jigsaw puzzle piece together a detailed profile of who you are. Most of these companies buy and process information from bank transactions, phone records or from credit cards. All of this information available for sale to be compiled.
Sit back and think about what those databases could tell someone. All of your buying choices. What movies do you buy. Where do you go to eat dinner? Do you buy flowers for your significant other? How many text messages a month do you send? What service do you use to upload photo albums? Did you rent a porn movie from online? As an example one of the most prominent of these companies is ChoicePoint...
http://www.choicepoint.com/
Who actually had to publicly admit that they had a data breach and in the uproar admitted that over 160,000 records were accessed in 2004...
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/01/choicepoint.shtm
Guess who is the biggest user of their services? The US Government...
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/4/20/170209.shtml
Now the reason I brought up Justice Scalia's view on this...is because he was forced to swallow a little bitter pill over his speech. After he gave his speech, a law professor at Fordham University gave his students an assignment for their Information Privacy Law Class. What was the assignment? Compile and build a dossier on Justice Scalia...
In four months for his class they got the value of his home, his home phone number, his wife's email address, pictures of his nine grandchildren and where they live, his taste in movies, where and what he buys when he shops for groceries, where he likes to eat out for dinner and a whole other trove of goodies...
Now of course this got Scalia so upset that he actually responded to this project which I should paste in his response:
"I stand by my remark at the Institute of American and Talmudic Law conference that it is silly to think that every single datum about my life is private. I was referring, of course, to whether every single datum about my life deserves privacy protection in law. It is not a rare phenomenon that what is legal may also be quite irresponsible. That appears in the First Amendment context all the time. What can be said often should not be said. Prof. Reidenberg's exercise is an example of perfectly legal, abominably poor judgment. Since he was not teaching a course in judgment, I presume he felt no responsibility to display any."
http://abovethelaw.com/2009/04/justice_scalia_responds_to_for.php
Guess he may be rethinking his idea of privacy.
This was a class of lawyers with very little experience. If they could do it to Justice Scalia, they can do it to you too. And these guys weren't even professionals. This was what they dug up on amateur hour.
This is the future we are going to face. This is where the law is going to have to get a grip on the fact that as much as the Internet is a blessing...the net and these companies with their databases could be gathering everything about you right now. And you might never know it and you have no control. The question is: what basic protection and control should you have over your information?
Do we need a privacy law or amendment to control our information? What should be your rights?
But still it does seem that we do have fundamental rights. But the right that was never expressly articulated in the constitution but we always assumed to be there before us happens to be our right to privacy. Do we have a right to privacy?
That's becoming a more powerful question now that the government has been embracing the full power of computers. That clash of technology and law is also starting to make a lot of people nervous and angry. In particular one guy who recently took offense. Why was that guy important? Because he sits on the Supreme Court...
In January of this year Justice Antonin Scalia...
http://www.oyez.org/justices/antonin_scalia/
Gave a speech to the Institute of American and Talmudic Law...
http://www.iatlaw.org/
And in that speech...a full text isn't available online...he was quoted about the issue of privacy. Here were some of his remarks that the media zeroed in on which I will paraphrase and then link,
"In the digital age privacy rights should be distinguished between confidential data such as medical records and information that might be personal but isn't hard to know"
...
http://www.privacylives.com/associated-press-scalia-speaks-on-digital-privacy-at-nyc-conference/2009/01/28/
Now this is important when it comes to the Internet because this guy could decide who has access to what the public or government can learn about you. In particular Justice Scalia was not concerned about such intrusions as Internet tracking, knowing what groceries he buys saying,
"I don't think it is a secret what I buy, unless it's shameful."
Concurring Opinions had an overview of his vision of privacy...
http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/01/justice_scalias_1.html
Now that is an extraordinary position. Because technology today is driving a boom regarding to privacy. A bunch of groups have been offering services that use databases. Databases with information about me and you. And they gather this information to like a jigsaw puzzle piece together a detailed profile of who you are. Most of these companies buy and process information from bank transactions, phone records or from credit cards. All of this information available for sale to be compiled.
Sit back and think about what those databases could tell someone. All of your buying choices. What movies do you buy. Where do you go to eat dinner? Do you buy flowers for your significant other? How many text messages a month do you send? What service do you use to upload photo albums? Did you rent a porn movie from online? As an example one of the most prominent of these companies is ChoicePoint...
http://www.choicepoint.com/
Who actually had to publicly admit that they had a data breach and in the uproar admitted that over 160,000 records were accessed in 2004...
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/01/choicepoint.shtm
Guess who is the biggest user of their services? The US Government...
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/4/20/170209.shtml
Now the reason I brought up Justice Scalia's view on this...is because he was forced to swallow a little bitter pill over his speech. After he gave his speech, a law professor at Fordham University gave his students an assignment for their Information Privacy Law Class. What was the assignment? Compile and build a dossier on Justice Scalia...
In four months for his class they got the value of his home, his home phone number, his wife's email address, pictures of his nine grandchildren and where they live, his taste in movies, where and what he buys when he shops for groceries, where he likes to eat out for dinner and a whole other trove of goodies...
Now of course this got Scalia so upset that he actually responded to this project which I should paste in his response:
"I stand by my remark at the Institute of American and Talmudic Law conference that it is silly to think that every single datum about my life is private. I was referring, of course, to whether every single datum about my life deserves privacy protection in law. It is not a rare phenomenon that what is legal may also be quite irresponsible. That appears in the First Amendment context all the time. What can be said often should not be said. Prof. Reidenberg's exercise is an example of perfectly legal, abominably poor judgment. Since he was not teaching a course in judgment, I presume he felt no responsibility to display any."
http://abovethelaw.com/2009/04/justice_scalia_responds_to_for.php
Guess he may be rethinking his idea of privacy.
This was a class of lawyers with very little experience. If they could do it to Justice Scalia, they can do it to you too. And these guys weren't even professionals. This was what they dug up on amateur hour.
This is the future we are going to face. This is where the law is going to have to get a grip on the fact that as much as the Internet is a blessing...the net and these companies with their databases could be gathering everything about you right now. And you might never know it and you have no control. The question is: what basic protection and control should you have over your information?
Do we need a privacy law or amendment to control our information? What should be your rights?
