Joe Lieberman makes privacy a 2004 campaign issue [priv]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Kudos to Sen. Lieberman for making an effort to inject this into the 
presidential campaign. But of course the good senator singles out 
corporations, saying he wants to increase data collection and use 
regulations that U.S. firms must abide by. Lieberman's web page complains 
about Americans being at the "mercy of huge corporations" but doesn't use 
the same language to discuss government intrusions into our personal 
sphere. Those intrusions are far more worrisome.

If U.S. politicians and advocacy groups truly care about privacy, they 
would seek to eliminate the laws and regulatory agencies that endanger it 
the most. Those include, in no particular order, drug prohibition 
(http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40532,00.html), the federal 
income tax, and Social Security.

The issue of drug prohibition should speak for itself: the USA Patriot Act 
pales by comparison with the gradual repeal of the Fourth Amendment over 
the last few decades thanks to increasingly intrusive police powers. The 
income tax requires Americans to report hundreds of very personal bits of 
information to the IRS, and Social Security has branded us with a number 
that was never intended to be used as a form of global authentication but is.

A candidate or advocacy group who put privacy first would legalize drugs, 
dismantle the IRS and replace income taxes with a sales tax or flat tax 
(something Democrat Jerry Brown wanted to do in the 1992 presidential 
campaign), and phase out mandatory Social Security in favor of offering 
Americans a choice about whether to participate in the government program 
or instead use personal retirement accounts. A partial personal retirement 
account is even what Candidate Bush proposed in 2000 
(http://www.socialsecurity.org/).

If candidates and advocacy groups bemoan a loss of privacy but don't 
address the underlying issues, it's reasonable to question what their 
priorities are.

-Declan

---

From: "Calvino" <calvino78 () hotmail com>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: Presidential privacy proposal
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 14:40:37 -0500

Thought the politech readers might be interested in this:
http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2004/01/09/rtr1205216.html

The entire plan is on the Lieberman Web site at:
http://www.joe2004.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6672


Sen. Lieberman rolls out new U.S. privacy plan
Reuters, 01.09.04, 1:33 PM ET
By Andrew Clark
MANCHESTER, N.H. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Joseph
Lieberman proposed a plan Friday to give Americans more control of their
personal data as well as more access to government information.

Lieberman, a senator from Connecticut who has been active in a debate in
Congress over how to protect privacy in the digital age, conceded the issue
had yet to become a hot topic in the Democratic primary race.

But he said the rapid rise of identity theft, with an estimated one in eight
U.S. adults falling victim in the past five years, had created a deep
groundswell of concern about the security of personal financial information.

"When you start to talk about things, people are agitated about this because
they know their information is being held on computers somewhere and they
worry," Lieberman told New Hampshire Public Radio.

His proposal would double penalties for identity theft and encourage federal
regulators to pressure credit reporting agencies to make it easier for
victims of the crime to repair their tarnished financial records.

It would also require financial institutions to get customers' explicit
permission before sharing their data with or selling it to other
companies -- something the financial industry has strenuously resisted as
unnecessary and damaging to marketing efforts that can benefit consumers.

...
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