From: Jonah Bossewitch <jb2410@columbia.edu>
  To  : <cpc@emoglen.law.columbia.edu>
  Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 02:15:59 -0500

Re: private versus government data collection

Hi,

For certain there is no easy way to tease apart the govt vs corporate 
forces.  I think the disneyworld marketing example and the thought police 
beating down the door grossly trivializes the issues.  With the merger 
between media, coperations, and government the threat is real and not 
paranoid or delusional.

This kind if information will no doubt be used to perpetuate and worsen the 
current division of labor in society - helping the rich get richer and the 
poor get poorer.  Mortgage approvals, health care coverage, school 
admissions, and all sorts of other "privileges" we can't yet imagine living 
with or without - are all under the province of corporations with access to 
these data warehouses.

I am wondering if we could talk a little bit about the HIPPA act, and 
whether this could possibly be used as a legislative model for privacy 
protection, or critique it where it falls short:
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/

/Jonah


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve McBride" <spm2101@columbia.edu>
To: <cpc@emoglen.law.columbia.edu>
Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2005 3:08 PM
Subject: Re: private versus government data collection


>
> I agree with you Alex.  The line between corporations and government gets 
> a bit hazy--it looks like a case of one hand washing the other.  Lack of 
> any effective enforcement measures against misuse of information is what 
> scares me the most.  That leads back to the government as the problem, but 
> it also points out that there are just not enough people that care about 
> this behavior to oppose the lobbying power of the data mining companies 
> and law enforcement.  It looks like until the misuse of this data causes a 
> huge scandal, the public won't care enough to force change.
>
> Steve
>
> --On Sunday, February 20, 2005 11:20 AM -0500 ar2308@columbia.edu wrote:
>
>>
>> I would say this an oversimplification of things, and more importantly
>> the issue is not only the use that the government can make of the all of
>> this information but also the misuse and defective protection of the
>> private data by private individuals. added to that is the use that others
>> can make of the data that readily available for stealing and for which
>> there is not penalty under American privacy laws, which only bind the
>> government -excerpt maybe for the fair credit reporting act.
>>
>> So its not really either or, and its not what is worse, its the combined
>> effect of it all.
>>
>> Alex
>>
>> --On Sunday, February 20, 2005 9:15 AM -0500 Camden Hutchison
>> <crh2014@columbia.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> The impression I am getting from reading Robert O?Harrow, Jr.?s book
>>> is that new data collection technologies raise two distinct social
>>> issues.  One is that private businesses now have easy access to
>>> detailed personal information about us.  The other is that the
>>> federal government increasingly also has access to detailed
>>> personal information about us.
>>>
>>> I am curious as to which of these two issues other students feel is
>>> the core problem we should be addressing in the class.  My own
>>> feeling is that government use of our personal information (at
>>> least when it is being used for national security purposes) is far
>>> more worrisome than private use of that information.  Like Eben
>>> said in class, the worst that marketers can do is try to convince
>>> us to go to Disneyworld.  The government can send men with guns to
>>> our homes.
>>>
>>> -Camden
>>>
>>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Computers, Privacy, and the Constitution mailing list
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
>
>
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