IP: Privacy Plan Likely to Kick Off Debate

[David Farber <dfarber () fast net>]

By CARL S. KAPLAN
Privacy Plan Likely to Kick Off Debate


The goal of the plan announced by President Clinton's chief of staff, John
Podesta, sounded admirable: to overhaul the nation's privacy laws,
harmonizing a patchwork of inconsistent rules and extending to e-mail and
mobile phone messages the same strict safeguards against government snooping
that now apply to telephone calls.

But in the fine print of Podesta's speech was a detail that some privacy
advocates found alarming: a rollback of the tight privacy protections that
many believe currently apply to Internet communications over cable modems
and networks.

In short, they say, the government is proposing to giveth somewhat and
taketh away a lot.

In response, the government's chief privacy officer, Peter P. Swire, said in
an interview that a whittling down of certain features of cable privacy laws
is necessary to prevent cable-based Internet networks from becoming a haven
for criminals.

Whichever side is right, the administration's announcement has kicked off
what is likely to be an intensified debate over the level of privacy
protection that online speech has from government interference.
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http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/08/cyber/cyberlaw/04law.html