Computer Privacy Digest Mon, 27 Sep 93 Volume 3 : Issue: 049 Today's Topics: Moderator: Dennis G. Rears Re: John misses the point Constitutional Privacy Amendment? Query: Privacy and the CPR Right to Privacy vs. Employer's Right to find out what is Re: Health card Call for Papers: Gender and Computing Re: Caller ID/ANI Thread REQUEST FOR INFO: SmartCard, PTN Clinton's Health Care Plan The Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion on the effect of technology on privacy. The digest is moderated and gatewayed into the USENET newsgroup comp.society.privacy (Moderated). Submissions should be sent to comp-privacy@pica.army.mil and administrative requests to comp-privacy-request@pica.army.mil. Back issues are available via anonymous ftp on ftp.pica.army.mil [129.139.160.133]. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "David H. Close" Newsgroups: comp.society.privacy,mlist.telecom-priv Subject: Re: John misses the point Date: 25 Sep 1993 22:22:23 GMT Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena My latest PacBell billing insert states, "If you call a 900 number outside California, the phone number from which you're calling may be provided to the information provider." This doesn't actually say, but implies, that your number is NOT provided to 900 suppliers INSIDE California. How's that? -- Dave Close, BS'66 Ec "A difference has to make a difference dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu in order to be a difference." dave@compata.attmail.com Wendell Johnson ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1993 02:51:33 -0400 (EDT) From: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com> Reply-To: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com> Subject: Constitutional Privacy Amendment? From: Paul Robinson Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA ----- David Heck , writes: > It seems to me, with the dozens of legislative attempts to > secure privacy for citizens, instead of dealing with the > symptoms, why not go the source of the problem and provide a > constitutional guarantee as a Privacy Amendment `to the > Constitution? If I was cynical, I'd say the laws are written so as to quiet those who complain about a problem, since ordinary laws can be quietly repealed, changed, or ignored. There is no constitutional provision for the setting of standards for what constitutes wetlands on private property and the ability to declare someone unable to develop their own property as they see fit, and effectively have their property confiscated without payment, and there are no laws to authorize this, yet people are being hit with heavy fines and imprisonment for violating federal wetlands regulations that have no statutory or constitutional backing. > It sure as heck would have an uphill battle in both houses, > but with citizens clamoring loudly to all congressional > representatives on a variety of issues the risks of not > responding to critical constituent concerns seem to outweigh > individual congressmen's concerns with their party leadership > and campaign financing. I think most people do not know how bad the situation is and don't see threats to privacy as serious enough to threaten their congresscritter with defeat at the next election. If you want to do something, when the new taxes kick in, find out the members of congress who are unfriendly to privacy and target *those* members for defeat, using the new, heavier taxes that they voted for as the reason. People are going to be mad about these new taxes Clinton has forced on them when they see how much more they are going to be paying. It makes me mad enough to consider running against my local representative, Steny Hoyer, who never saw a government handout or tax increase he didn't love. > What about establishing an ad hoc citizens committee to > produce a draft copy then initiate national petition drive in > all 50 states then force congress to act....any comments? Has > anything like this been proposed/attempted in the past? > Privacy is not currently guarateed in our constitution, why > not guaratee it? I believe that privacy is implied by 3rd & 4th Amendments: The third deals with putting troops in private houses during peacetime. The 4th reads "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches shall mot be violated..." It is not that the rights are not _guaranteed_ but that the rights of the people are routinely _ignored_. A number of people in government have the nasty habit of ignoring the rights of individuals, or of doing things that any village idiot with even the smallest amount of intelligence would see are clearly wrong and violative of constitution. The Civil Forfeiture laws - a government agency can sieze any property you own claiming it was purchased using the proceeds of a crime, then you must not only prove they are wrong but were negligent, or the agency that confiscated keeps whatever they siezed - are a clear and obvious violation of the constitution, yet they have been approved even when used against people who have not been convicted of a crime or even arrested. The sordid mess involving Alvarez Machain (a Mexican National, in direct contravention to the terms of a treaty, is kidnapped out of Mexico to stand trial and the Supreme Court says that's okay), and the Los Angeles Police Beating case (Officers are acquitted of the crime in a state court, so the Federal Government turns around and retries them for the same thing), despite the provisions against double jeopardy. Those who argued in favor of those cases were raising a sham and a farce to justify what even a village idiot would see is unjustifiable, and not permitted. It is not that the protections are not there, it's that the provisions that do exist are ignored and the Supreme Court sanctions their violation. --- Paul Robinson - TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM Voted "Largest Polluter of the (IETF) list" by Randy Bush ----- ------------------------------ Organization: The American University - University Computing Center Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1993 14:32:41 EDT From: RSTALLI@american.edu Subject: Query: Privacy and the CPR I will be writing a paper regarding privacy and the Computer-based Patient Record next month. Does anyone have any recent information (1993) regarding legislation and CPR privacy? Thank-you, Bob Stallings RSTALLI@American.edu ------------------------------ Subject: Right to Privacy vs. Employer's Right to find out what is From: bj@herbison.com (B.J. Herbison) Date: , 26 Sep 93 19:50:47 GMT Organization: Herbison Consulting, Leominster, MA 01453-523218 +1 508 534-1050 In article lexier@sfu.ca writes: > What do you think of the Right to Privacy versus the employer's right > to find out what is happening in their company? I have many thoughts on this topic, but my thoughts are not well organized. Below are a few of my thoughts. Employers do have a right to know what is happening in their company. An individual's right to privacy is not `no one can ever know anything about you', but `you have a right to control what is known about you'. When going to a restautant, running for political office, taking a job, or performing most any other activity, an individual loses some privacy. The paragraph above doesn't mean that employers have a right to know everything about employees, or even their actions in the workplace. In particular, o employers have no right to monitor employees on breaks (both regular breaks and bathroom breaks), and o employers should inform employees about the extent and type of monitorig -- in other words, the employment contract by which the employee gives up some rights in exchange for a job should be explicit about the rights that the employee is giving up. In addition, employers will generally find that they end up with a happier and more highly motivated set of employees if the employer requires the employees to give up fewer rights. A trivial example: allowing employees to make some personal phone calls during office hours will make it much easier for the employees to perform the tasks their private life requires, and therefore reduce the stress of employees. The issue of employer/employee rights is one reason that I now have a network connection from home. As I write this message from my living room on my personal PC, to be sent over a phone line I pay for, there is no question of wasting work time, of using the resources of my employeer, of monitoring by my employeer, and no need for disclaimers. I have a personal network connection for separation of identity, not out of necessity. B.J. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 93 21:16:40 EDT From: "George T. \"14K F/D\" Talbot" Subject: Re: Health card Winston B Edumond writes: It'd be nice if its use as a national unique identifier were as least as protected from abuse as the SSN. -WBE Why not use the SSN? (0.5 * :^) + 0.5 * serious) George T. Talbot --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Finger my account for PGP public key. | This is very political software. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 93 22:57:59 EST From: Diane Kovacs Subject: Call for Papers: Gender and Computing CALL FOR ARTICLES EJVC: ELECTRONIC JOURNAL ON VIRTUAL CULTURE ----------------------------------------------------------------- Special Issue: Gender Issues in Computer Networking Issue Editor: Leslie Regan Shade McGill University Graduate Program in Communications (czsl@musica.mcgill.ca; shade@well.sf.ca.us) EJVC is a new peer-reviewed electronic journal dedicated to scholarly research and discussion of all aspects of computer- mediated human experience, behavior, action, and interaction. This special issue of the EJVC will be devoted to gender issues in networking. Despite the abundance of various private networks and the meteoric growth of the Internet,this rapidly expanding user base does not include an equal proportion of men and women. How can women become equally represented in the new "electronic frontier" of cyberspace? Issues to be discussed can include, but are not limited to, the following: *Access issues--to hardware, software, and training. What barriers do women face? What are some success stories? *How can women be given the technical expertise to become comfortable and versatile with computer networking? *Interface design: can there be a feminist design? *How can networking realize its potential as a feminist tool? *How can woman scholars exploit networking's technology? *What information technology policies could be developed to ensure computer networking equity for women, as well as minorities? *How does one define computer pornography and "offensive" material on the net? Should it be allowed? *How should sexual harassment on the net be treated? *Are women-only groups necessary? *How do women interact on MUDS and MOOs? *What net resources exist for women? Deadlines: December 1, 1993 submission of abstracts April 1, 1994 submission of contributions Abstracts will be reviewed by the issue editor for appropriate- ness of content and overall balance of the issue as a whole. In turn, authors will then be invited to submit full-length contributions, which will be peer-reviewed by the journal's normal editorial process before final acceptance for publication. The issue editor encourages correspondence about proposed contributions even before submission of an abstract. Potential contributors may obtain a more detailed statement about the focus and range of this special issue by sending electronic mail to the issue editor with the Subject line: EJVC Issue or by anonymous ftp to byrd.mu.wvnet.edu, directory /pub/ejvc, get ejvc.shade.call. Further information about EJVC may be obtained by sending e-mail to LISTSERV@KENTVM.BITNET or LISTSERV@KENTVM.KENT.EDU with one or more of the following lines in the text: SUBSCRIBE EJVC-L YourFirst LastName GET EJVC WELCOME INDEX EJVC-L Also, the file is available by anonymous ftp to byrd.mu.wvnet.edu in the pub/ejvc directory. ------------------------------ From: Hans Lachman Subject: Re: Caller ID/ANI Thread Organization: Netcom Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 12:11:11 GMT OK, this is my last post on this topic (I hope!). This is directed to those of you who are in favor of consumer privacy: As you've probably surmised, there is nothing wrong with having the ability to block ANI. This ANI issue is really just one specific sub-issue in the larger debate over consumer privacy. The debate seems to be between those who want to increase the consumer's control over his/her own information, and those who want to defeat any efforts toward that goal, for whatever reason. People in the latter category will confront you with questions like, "What harm has ever been caused by ANI delivery?", or, "Why do you feel threatened?", or, "Why should the consumer have more control?", or "What do you have to hide?" My advice: Don't answer these kinds of questions. They presume that you need to justify any change in the status quo that gives the consumer more power. You don't. We have seen in this newsgroup extensive attempts at justification for allowing ANI blocking. Then the anti-privacy freaks criticize those justifications as weak or hypothetical (which some are). Instead, turn the questioning around, and ask the anti-privacy freak for proof of any danger resulting from the increase in consumer power. That puts them in the defensive position. I asked for this proof in the ANI debate (earlier article), and got deafening silence from the other side. In conclusion, I believe that consumers should have maximum possible control over the collection, dissemination, and use of information about themselves. Below is an excerpt of a past article in this newsgroup, indicating that the current administration is simpathetic to privacy concerns. I hope it wasn't just campaign rhetoric, and that something will be done to give consumers more power. Hans Lachman ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.privacy,sci.electronics,comp.society.futures,comp.society.privacy From: Jim Seward Subject: REQUEST FOR INFO: SmartCard, PTN Keywords: Smart-Card, telephone Organization: Bowling Green State University B.G., Oh. Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 17:04:03 GMT I would like some information on the Smart-Card, i.e. What is it, who gets it, and any implications of its use. I am also interested in any information about "personal" telephone numbers technology (basically expanded paging service) and their implications. Any information on where I could get more info. on the above would also be greatly appreciated. E-mail is fine and preferred. Jim Seward InterNet: jseward@andy.bgsu.edu -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jim Seward (jseward@andy.bgsu.edu) I Today's quote: "Give it back, it's not Bowling Green State University I yours!" -The Power, Twilight Zone ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 15:10 EDT From: WHMurray@dockmaster.ncsc.mil Subject: Clinton's Health Care Plan Beuse it is paid for by third parties, it is rife with fraud. Most of this fraud is perpetrated by care providers against third party payers. Ms. Clinton's program will be no exception to this rule. The bureaucrats response of choice in this situation will be a personal identity number and a massive data base. This data base will contain our most intimate personal information. It will be in the hands of government bureaucrats. If bureaucrats simply do what bureaucrats do, these tools will result in huge loss of personal and family privacy. While safeguards, may mitigate this to some small degree, and whether or not there is abuse, the impact will be major. This is a natural and unavoidable cost of this program. Before we adopt this proposal, we should understand this cost which we cannot avoid. William Hugh Murray, Executive Consultant, Information System Security 49 Locust Avenue, Suite 104; New Canaan, Connecticut 06840 1-0-ATT-0-700-WMURRAY; WHMurray at DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL ------------------------------ End of Computer Privacy Digest V3 #049 ******************************