Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!mauxci!eci386!jmm
From: jmm@eci386.uucp (John Macdonald)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Caller ID problems
Message-ID: <1991Apr5.212502.22001@eci386.uucp>
Date: 5 Apr 91 21:25:02 GMT
References: <1991Mar29.195940.12006@eng.umd.edu> <1991Mar29.220816.8305@ima.isc.com> <1991Mar30.043415.7314@odin.corp.sgi.com> <13945@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Reply-To: jmm@eci386.UUCP (John Macdonald)
Organization: Elegant Communications Inc.
Lines: 24

In article <13945@helios.TAMU.EDU> byron@archone.tamu.edu (Byron Rakitzis) writes:
|I don't see how anyone can regard Caller ID as an "invasion of privacy". It's
|like saying that a peephole on your front door constitutes an invasion of any
|visitor's privacy because their "right" to knock on your door anonymously has
|been interfered with.

Not exactly, but you're looking at the wrong side of the transaction.
The caller is the one who's privacy has been invaded.  Caller ID
without convenient blocking corresponds to forcing anyone who knocks
on any door to wear an ID card in case the person on the other side
of the door happens to have a peephole.  That does not correspond to
the existing situation with the door.  If someone were to put up a
sign at their door saying "hold up a sign with your name, address,
and telephone number or the door will not be opened" there is no
agency forcing their callers to do so, just as there is no agency
forcing them to open their door whether the caller complies with
this demand or not.

Allowing the answerer to screen calls is *not* the invasion of privacy
- requiring the caller to provide the screening info to anyone they
call *is*.
-- 
sendmail - as easy to operate and as painless as using        | John Macdonald
manually powered dental tools on yourself - John R. MacMillan |   jmm@eci386