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Editorial -- 3/14/99
More and more of us seem to be getting concerned about the loss of individual privacy. Look at the ruckus raised by the Intel Pentium III, which originally had the capability to identify Web surfers. Intel disabled this feature prior to shipment as a result of the outrage.
Most assaults on privacy have nothing to do with technology, however. If you have not yet done so, please read the Big Brother editorial.
How many of you have one or more of the supermarket discount cards? Did you give them ALL the information they asked for? I personally do not think the grocery store clerk taking the application needs to know my home phone or how much I make annually. I hate to speculate who has access to this information and who can buy it.
And it really pisses me off that I can't buy a $12 printer cable for cash at a Radio Shack without the friggin clerk asking for my name, address, etc. I don't shop there anymore. They're not the only ones, but I think they were among the first and worst.
Iowa has started something which I hope does not become a national trend. If you are stopped for any reason, the police have the right to search your car. This country boy ain't got no law degree, but this is clearly unreasonable search-and-seizure. Other police departments are pushing for the same thing.
By the way, I still think the checkpoints where they stop everybody is unconstitutional regardless of what the Supreme Court says. The weekend DUI checks don't bother me as much as the Monday mornings when they make everybody at whatever apartment complex they choose late for work. I was unfortunate enough to live in a Virginia suburb where this happenned about once a month. I hope one day we will have a Supreme Court that does not take the infringement of individual liberty so damn lightly.
So what's the big deal? The big deal is they get an inch, they take a lightyear. Not satisfied with unreasonable searches of cars, Janet Reno wants to collect a sample of your DNA if you are brazen enough to drive around with a broken tailight. (I just got this horrible mental image of Reno hovering over me, hyperdermic in hand . . .) I don't want to go into great detail here about what taking your DNA sample would mean but suffice it to say your genetic roadmap reveals far more about yourself than you want in a government database. If my Big Brother editorial doesn't tick you off enough to get in touch with your national and local representatives, I hope this does.
But let's do get back to the high tech issues. I saw Scott McNeally quoted as saying we've already lost our privacy and we "should get over it." Well, I've got two words for him and if you can't guess, take a look at the masthead for this ezine. I am not getting over it.
There's one area that, if you get burned, I won't have any sympathy for you. Companies check the email that their employees send. Well, guess what? It's their PC, it's their network, it's their disk storage and they have the right (and obligation, in fact) to check what is floating around in their piece of cyberspace. I would urge you not to send personal emails unless you have explicit permission. Same goes for Web surfing. A former client had a written policy which was inculcated into every employee and contractor. Yet my boss did a lot of her Christmas shopping on line at work. It ain't right, folks. It's a stupid reason to risk losing a job.
Let's hit one more issue and then I'll get off my cyber soapbox. I don't know what it is with the Federal government lately; every agency seems to be trying to out-Nazi the others in terms of privacy infringement. The Secret Service wants to build a national database of driver's license photos. The potential help to criminal investigations is there, as it is for most such requests. But is it worth the intrusion into the lives of Joe and Joan Average American? I don't think so.
That's my opinion. What's yours?