Previous Politech message: http://politechbot.com/pipermail/politech/2003-September/000030.html --- From: "Jim Harper - Privacilla.org" <jim.harper@private> To: "'Declan McCullagh'" <declan@private> Cc: <Frank.Trotter@private>, <BSteinhardt@private> Subject: RE: [Politech] ACLU's Barry Steinhardt on showing ID and "building privacy" [priv] Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 13:58:05 -0400 Message-ID: <002e01c386b3$3f56d8b0$2ca8fea9@DJZ81G11> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal Advocating reflexively for privacy legislation, Barry Steinhardt has badly misstated the law pertaining to ID checks for entry into private buildings. There are hundreds of highly particularized laws that govern what is done with the data. What is missing, and rightfully so, is bureaucratic regulation on the topic. A great mass of federal and state statutory and common law boils down to one thing: "No harmful use may be made of data." The data may not be used in a conspiracy to rob Mr. Trotter's house. It may not be used for identity fraud. It may not be used to stalk him. It may not be used to plan or commit any crime. It may not be joined with highly personal information to expose him to public ridicule. It may not be used in an advertisement. It may not be used to cause him emotional distress. The list goes on and on and on. Here in the United States, our common law tradition focuses on prevention of harms in an atmosphere of relative freedom. The European civil law tradition emphasizes the power of regulators to dictate in detail how private life may be conducted. Europe's a great place . . . to visit. People are right to wonder whether the existence of laws will actually prevent harms. The ACLU was under a legal duty to protect the privacy of people who shopped at their online store, and the result was: http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2003/jan/jan14a_03.html The NY AG's enforcement was a bit of an over-reaction, pandering to privacy as a political issue perhaps, but the ACLU has surely now cleaned up its act. Likewise, building entry data may not get proper attention until some big building-entry-data-breach occurs. Sorry, but it strikes me as a little far-fetched. A lot of data is collected, or persists somewhere online, and it just sits there, useless. Not even a criminal could exploit it. Turning to self-help and personal responsibility, I'm not sure what building security is like in NY these days, but when I'm required to write my name, affiliation, or contact info on a clipboard, I give them pretty much an unreadable scribble. Recommended: nunya@private Get it? I'd like to hear that Mr. Trotter has taken the time to ask building occupants what the building's information policies are. I'd like to hear that Mr. Steinhardt has refused to enter a building because of intrusive security practices. You can tell that people actually care about privacy when they do something about it. I don't think privacy law should just be a sop for armchair consumers. That's what it is in Europe and the results speak for themselves. The more important focus, as always, is where consumers do not have choice. Tomorrow is the last day to comment on CAPPS II! http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=13453&c=130 Jim Harper Editor Privacilla.org _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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