FC: Privacy villain of the week: California's Dianne Feinstein

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Thu Oct 25 2001 - 12:45:20 PDT

  • Next message: Declan McCullagh: "FC: Rudyard Kipling, the Objectivist Center, Ayn Rand & National IDs"

    ********
    
    Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 15:36:19 -0400
    From: James Plummer <jplummerat_private>
    Subject: NCP: Privacy Villain of the Week - Sen. Dianne Feinstein
    
                Privacy Villain of the Week:
    Sen. Dianne Feinstein
    
    When Oracle software CEO Larry Ellison 
    <http://www.nccprivacy.org/handv/010927villain.htm> announced his support 
    for a National ID card program heavily dependent on his own company's 
    software, it didn't come as much of a shock to industry-watchers who had 
    seen his company progress from its humble beginnings as a CIA contractor to 
    a firm that employed high-priced Clinton-connected private investigators to 
    dig through the trash of Microsoft supporters.
    
    But some privacy experts may have been surprised to hear that Sen. Dianne 
    Feinstein (D-Ca.) <http://www.senate.gov/~feinstein> has endorsed Ellison's 
    concept of a national ID card. 
    <http://www0.mercurycenter.com/local/center/id101701.htm> After all, isn't 
    this the senator who goes about demanding immediate regulation of business 
    and consumer-to-business practices in the name of 
    "privacy"?  <http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20010817S0015>
    
    Of course, Ellison's Oracle would benefit from the "free" software doing 
    so, in the form of installation and upgrade fees. And the rest of 
    Feinstein's home turf -- the Bay Area, Silicon Valley -- would benefit 
    tremendously from the further databasing of Americans. Microchips, 
    subdatabases, (allegedly) secure bandwidth infrastructure, etc., etc.
    
    Feinstein has been proposing national IDs since at least 1995. 
    <http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa237es.html> She has variously supported 
    nationally standardized driver's licenses and cards with biometric 
    identifiers such as fingerprints, retinal scans 
    <http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_2.11.txt> and voice readings required 
    for anyone with a job (to fight illegal immigration, doncha know 
    <http://www.aclu.org/vote-guide/Senate_S1664.html>).
    
    Feinstein and Ellison's efforts are reportedly falling flat 
    <http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-102401idcards.story>, 
    but that doesn't mean Americans serious about their privacy should not keep 
    an eye on those who would seize it. As seen here, they often come back to 
    the issue after a defeat, seemingly angling for a return engagement as 
    Privacy Villain of the Week.
    
    
    The Privacy Villain of the Week and Privacy Hero of the Month are projects 
    of the National Consumer Coalition's Privacy Group. For more information on 
    the NCC Privacy Group, see www.nccprivacy.org or contact James Plummer at 
    202-467-5809 or jplummerat_private . To remove yourself from this 
    list, just respond to this message with a removal request. To access this 
    release directly, go to http://www.nccprivacy.org/handv/011025villain.htm
    
    
    
    
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
    You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
    Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
    To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
    This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Oct 25 2001 - 12:56:40 PDT