FC: Why the panic over online information?

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

********

http://www.freedomforum.org/first/1999/12/13ombud.asp

Why the panic over online information?

 By Paul McMasters
 First Amendment Ombudsman

 12.13.99

 Americans have always placed a premium on their privacy and constantly fret
 about the possibility of personal information falling into the wrong hands.
But
 the possibility of such information falling into the wrong medium  namely
 the Internet  makes many of us downright apoplectic. 

 We seem to have grown more resigned to the idea of personal facts stored in
 government and corporate files. But any move to post those same facts on
 the Internet, or a Web page, panics otherwise sane and sober people  such
 as judges and members of Congress. When confronted with that possibility,
 they inevitably begin to jabber excitedly about terrorists, murderers and the
 unimaginable horrors that electronic access might provoke.

 Two recent examples of this reaction:

  A federal judge unilaterally and summarily halted plans by an online news
 organization to post on the Internet information about judges' financial
 holdings and dealings.

  Privacy advocates sounded a national alarm after learning that the Social
 Security numbers of 4,500 military officers were available on the Web site of
 Glen L. Roberts.

[...]



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