Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!lll-winken!telecom-request From: ehopper@attmail.com Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: AT&T Employee Makes Private Phone Records Public!! Message-ID: Date: 8 May 91 16:09:59 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 56 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 345, Message 3 of 11 Andrew Peed writes: > Now hold the phone, folks. > IF the telephone customer in question had been a private citizen, I > too would be outraged at Mr. Borow's publishing of this information. Nonsense, all customers have a right to privacy. Just because a person or group of persons forms a corporation to do business does not mean that they are not entitled to privacy. > HOWEVER, American Consumer Services (or whatever it calls itself) is > operating as a public-service company, and as such is (or should be) > open to public scrutiny. I see absolutely NO problem with Mr. Borow's > publishing what he did. What in the world is a "public-service company"? True, these people are probably typical telemarketing sleaze (TTS for short), but that does not abrogate their rights. Why should they be open to public scrutiny? If they break the law, sure. But this type of invasion is inappropriate. I am, quite frankly, alarmed at this attitude that the sin of capitalism is an excuse for all types of excess. > This is information that anyone off the street could concievably get, > either by asking the company directly, or if necessary by going > through the Better Business Bureau or even legal channels. I think that's stretching it by a mile. I doubt that the company in question would give you that information, particularly if you advised them that you intended to publish it to Telecom. The BBB is, of course, a joke. They have virtually no investigative ability and certainly no authority. Pursuing legal channels would require that one show cause as to why one needed this information and why one had a right to this information. I doubt that anyone in this case, including the original recipient of the call, would be able to support such a request in court. > If I remember my American Government lecturer's comments correctly, > the Constitution of the United States explicitly guarantees the right > of privacy to INDIVIDUALS, not corporations. As I see it, > corporations, particularly those that operate in the public interest, > should be open books for us, the public, to read and base our consumer > behavior upon. I am not sure your lecturer knows what he is talking about. Corporations are "persons" under the law. They can own property and exercise a number of other rights. I know of no place where a court has specifically held that corporations, simply because they were corporations, had no right to privacy. Would you really want that? Without a corporate right to privacy, a letter you send to your bank, for example, could be opened at the post office for the amusement of all. Ed Hopper ehopper@ehpcb.wlk.com