Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!cornell!wayner From: wayner@cello.cs.cornell.edu (Peter Wayner) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: The difference between private investigators and databases Message-ID: <50222@cornell.UUCP> Date: 2 Jan 91 18:47:46 GMT References: <14470@hoptoad.uucp> Sender: nobody@cornell.UUCP Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept. Ithaca NY Lines: 50 gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes: >abrams@cs.columbia.edu (Steven Abrams) wrote: >> I see nothing wrong with this from a legal >> point of view, since people were always able to obtain nearly any >> information they wanted about someone anyway. >The goverment and every person has had the ability to hire someone to >follow you around and report everything that you do. But this was >limited by the resources available. Do we now have the ability to >follow everyone around and report everything they do? How about everyone >who has publicly disagreed with the goverment? Or everyone who makes >more than $100,000 per year? >Do you see a qualitative distinction between the situation in the past >and in the present? What fraction of the population has to be under >surveillance before you see a distinction? 100%? 50%? 1%? >-- >John Gilmore {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@toad.com >Just say no to thugs. The ones who lock up innocent drug users come to mind. Now surveillance will certainly be a problem in the future but how do we legally make a distinction between my personal black book filled with phone numbers ( a few unpublished) and that evil data monger who's selling lists of individuals to marketeers? I'm quite afraid that any law against data gathering is going to negatively affect our freedoms. We'll have to worry whether the knowledge in our computers is illegal. The Rico act was aimed at mobsters and now it is used to threaten everyone. The Sherman Anti-Trust act was aimed at corporations, but the government has used it very effectively against unions. Privacy for me means reduced freedom for everyone else. One solution may be to make a person's actions "copyright" by that person. It's as if life was just one long performance art piece. (Which for some of us, it is.) Now that would mean that the marketeer who sold my penchant for preppie polo shirts to the J.Crew would be infringing on my copyright. But what about the folks at J.Crew? If I called them up and purchased something, wouldn't their half of the interaction be copyright by them? Couldn't they sell "Reproduction Rights" to the purchase experience to another marketeer? It was just as much their performance as mine? This is a tricky one, not an obvious knee-jerk one. -Peter Peter Wayner Department of Computer Science Cornell Univ. Ithaca, NY 14850 EMail:wayner@cs.cornell.edu Office: 607-255-9202 or 255-1008 Home: 116 Oak Ave, Ithaca, NY 14850 Phone: 607-277-6678