An important column by Dan Gillmor

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Dan Gillmor <dgillmor () mercurynews com>
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 14:01:18 -0700
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: When did IP start? What year?

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6293890.htm

Privacy rights under threat by lawmakers

By Dan Gillmor 
Mercury News Technology Columnist

In the constant battle to preserve what's left of our privacy and roll back
some of the invasions we've already suffered, one reality is all too clear:
Elected officials are not on our side.

Last week brought the latest perversion of the public will, the cowardly
refusal of the California Legislature to enact even modest improvements in
financial privacy. The voters will do it instead, in a ballot measure next
year. 

Meanwhile, state and federal lawmakers are almost totally oblivious to
future threats, including some that should be dealt with before they cause
trouble. For example, retailers will soon be installing little identifying
radios, a technology known as RFID, into items they sell, enabling a host of
new privacy invasions that could make the status quo seem benign.

We all understand why lawmakers hold the public good, and will, in such
contempt. They tend to vote on behalf of their financial benefactors.
Commercial interests see our privacy as a barrier to their business.

Game over? No. We have to care enough to take matters into our own hands.
Pressuring politicians is vital, but it's plainly not enough. We'll need to
do a little multitasking to retrieve our right to be left alone.

Californians have more options than most Americans. We can pass our own laws
by going over the heads of paid-for public officials, through the ballot
initiative process.

Through their toadies in Sacramento, the nation's largest financial
conglomerates and their allies killed SB 1, an already watered-down bill by
State Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, in an Assembly committee vote. It
would have given us somewhat more ability to prevent the financial giants
from peddling our personal information without our specific consent. The
legislation's death was a replay of previous years' charades, in which
politicians pretended to support financial privacy but somehow couldn't find
a way to make it law.

A majority of a key committee's members failed to vote, thereby preventing
the bill's passage while giving them a way to claim they weren't opposing
privacy. They won't get away with it, if their opponents in next year's
elections, assisted by the press, hold them to account. The industry that
lobbied so effectively won't get away with it, either.

Maybe some of these craven legislators will lose in primary elections next
March. If so, that will be a delicious dessert for privacy-hungry people,
because that's when the state's voters will pass a ``California Financial
Privacy Initiative.'' To learn more and find out how you can help get the
initiative on the ballot, visit the organizers' Web site ( www.california
privacy.org ). 

The financial giants will fight back, of course. They'll warn of horrific
problems if we pass this law, and they'll blanket us with deceptive
advertising. But they'll discover, as they did in North Dakota a couple of
years ago, that the lies will only reinforce voters' determination to rescue
their privacy. 

Citigroup, Wells Fargo, State Farm and the other conglomerates are going to
learn a hard, expensive lesson. They can buy the Legislature, but not the
people. 

The financial industry is nothing if not resourceful. It will surely attempt
to pull an end run, asking Congress for a nationwide law that would prohibit
individual states from enacting stronger privacy measures.

Write your U.S. representative ( www.house.gov ) and senators (
www.senate.gov ), and demand a) that he or she enact serious privacy
measures or b) reject moves to further weaken the already inadequate federal
laws we have. It may feel futile, but the lawmakers pay attention to
letters, especially when they're not part of an organized special-interest
campaign. 

ANOTHER THREAT : Once the financial privacy law goes into effect in
California, it'll be time to look into another emerging threat: the tiny,
increasingly cheap RFID (radio frequency identification) tags that many
companies want to embed in products.

They have some good reasons to do this. RFID tags, which could appear in
significant numbers within several years, could bring vastly greater
efficiency to what's known as the ``supply chain'' from manufacturers'
factories to store shelves. Knowing where products are at all times, and
then knowing when and where they've been sold so inventories can be
maintained at appropriate levels, is plainly a smart and useful idea.

But the RFID industry is not being sufficiently straightforward with the
public about the privacy implications. If these tags are still working when
they leave the store, the surveillance opportunities -- corporate America
sees these as research and marketing opportunities -- are obvious and
disturbing. 

Our elected officials should enact laws, soon, that will protect our
privacy. Retail RFID tags should be disabled -- with no possibility of
revival -- or removed before they leave the stores. Period.

The RFID lobby was embarrassed last week when documents describing a
deceptive pro-tag public-relations plan were revealed on a Web site at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where some of the development work is
taking place. One suggestion was to rename them ``Green Tags,'' apparently
to suggest environmental friendliness. (Think ``money'' instead.)

This should plainly be a federal issue, but given the overwhelming
pro-business tilt in Washington these days, the states may have to take it
on themselves. Maybe California's Legislature will do the right thing and
save the voters some time and effort.

But you have another way of influencing this particular discussion short of
another ballot initiative. Wal-Mart is the main retail and corporate force
behind the move to RFID, by many accounts, though it may be having second
thoughts about an early retail deployment. If you're a Wal-Mart customer,
tell the store manager the next time you're there that you will reconsider
your shopping behavior if the retailer is primary enabler of such spying.
(And please let me know the response.) If Wal-Mart does the right thing, so
will others. 

Some believe it's too late to salvage our privacy, that this kind of advice
is useless. I'm not certain they're wrong. But if we don't try, we'll make
the worst case the certain one. So let's work on this, together.
Dan Gillmor's column appears each Sunday and Wednesday. Visit Dan's online
column, eJournal ( www.dangillmor.com ). E-mail dgillmor () mercurynews com ;
phone (408) 920-5016; fax (408) 920-5917. 

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