IP: more on FCC on CPNI

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat org>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 16:04:53 -0600
To: farber () cis upenn edu, ip <ip-sub-1 () majordomo pobox com>
Subject: Re: IP: FCC on CPNI

Dave:

This is scary.

The new CPNI rules published by the Bush FCC would allow widespread
distribution 
-- and abuse -- of the intimately personal and private calling records of
telephone customers. They are contrary to Federal law and should be stayed
via an injunction at once.

The FCC press release you forwarded says:

> "Opt-Out - Use of CPNI by carriers or disclosure to their affiliated entities
> providing communications-related services, as well as third-party agents and
> joint venture partners providing communications-related services, requires a
> customers' knowing consent in the form of notice and opt-out approval.

Note the glib use of the self-contradictory term "opt-out approval."

According to a statement signed by 38 state Attorneys General,

"...§ 222 of the Act requires that carriers obtain customer "approval"
prior to using, disclosing, or permitting access to personally
identifiable CPNI, except in certain limited circumstances. Congress did
 not define this key term in the statute. The States believe that this term
must be given its ordinary and natural meaning. Black’s Law Dictionary
defines "approval" as “[t]he act of confirming, ratifying, assenting,
sanctioning, or consenting to some act or thing done by another.
'Approval' implies knowledge and exercise of discretion after knowledge."
BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 102 (6 th ed. 1990).

"The opt-out approach does not satisfy the requirement of "knowledge and
exercise of discretion after knowledge," because notices provided by the
carriers will not be sufficient to give consumers the knowledge they need
about the nature of the information being shared or sold, the
circumstances under which the information will be shared or sold, and the
effect or result of the sharing or selling of the information."

(Full text at http://www.naag.org/features/comments-cpni.pdf)

Also see the comments of more than a dozen public interest and consumer
groups at

http://www.epic.org/privacy/cpni/CPNI_CMN.pdf

Because the current Administration has consistently shown itself to
be willing to favor the will of large, monied corporations over the
civil rights and privacy of individual citizens, civil rights
organizations should step in to stop the abuse that will surely
occur otherwise. 

--Brett Glass

P.S. -- For a history of this issue, see EPIC's excellent synopsis at

http://www.epic.org/privacy/cpni/



------ End of Forwarded Message

For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/