Date: Thu, 30 Mar 95 14:44:31 EST
Errors-To: Comp-privacy Error Handler <owner-comp-privacy@uwm.edu>
From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator <comp-privacy@uwm.edu>
To: Comp-privacy@uwm.edu
Subject: Computer Privacy Digest V6#032
Computer Privacy Digest Thu, 30 Mar 95 Volume 6 : Issue: 032
Today's Topics: Moderator: Leonard P. Levine
Re: Fair Information Practices
Re: Fair Information Practices
Re: Proving your Citizenship
What is Privacy?
Re: Abolishing the IRS
Contact your provider re the Communications Decency Act
Info on CPD [unchanged since 12/29/94]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Robert Gellman <rgellman@cais.cais.com>
Date: 30 Mar 1995 00:27:12 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Fair Information Practices
Last week, I posted a copy of a code of fair information practices,
together with references to other sources for such a code. One of
those sources was listed as a 1975 Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare Report. Kelly Bert Manning then posted a question about this
report. He cited and discused a 1973 HEW report on privacy. Of
course, that is the report that I should have cited. The wrong date
was a typo. Apologies to all. Manning correctly noted that the 1973
report on "Records, Computers, and the Rights of Citizens" was a
seminal privacy document.
I am happy to correct to record.
--
Bob Gellman
Washington, DC
------------------------------
From: bo774@freenet.carleton.ca (Kelly Bert Manning)
Date: 30 Mar 1995 00:52:09 -0500
Subject: Re: Fair Information Practices
The CACM citation should be 1991. The link I was using to Carleton had
a very long echo delay last night so I wasn't able to spend very long
reading it over. It's on page 11 of CACM Vol. 34, No. 4.
------------------------------
From: ranck@earn.net (Bill Ranck)
Date: 30 Mar 1995 09:02:00 GMT
Subject: Re: Proving your Citizenship
Organization: Universite Paris-Sud, France.
Bob Casanova (tron!ops1.bwi.wec.com!cas@uunet.uu.net) wrote: Unless
this has changed since the early 60's, this is incorrect. There
were two Canadians in my platoon at Parris Island in late 1963.
If I remember correctly, service in the US military is one way to
obtain citizenship. Not sure of the details, but I'm fairly certain
that it makes a person eligible, and possibly it is automatically
granted.
--
* Bill Ranck +33.1.69.41.24.26 ranck@earn.net *
* Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association (TERENA) *
------------------------------
From: wilhelm@CS.Cornell.EDU (Wilhelm Uwe G.)
Date: 30 Mar 1995 09:19:54 -0500
Subject: What is Privacy?
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
Hi all,
I am working on a project, in which we want to increase the protection
of the privacy for users of mobile communication equipment. One of the
basic (and we're talking really basic here :-) problems is to define
what exactly is _privacy_.
I would like to get feedback from people who are working in this area,
about what they think when they hear the word privacy and comments on
the entire subject (i.e. security, access control, authentication,
etc.). The issue of this definition is to find some tangible, formal
way to define privacy, which can in some way be implemented in software
(a la protection in Operating Systems).
I will collect the replies I get via e-mail and post them to the net
together with my own ideas (not too much anyway :-).
--
Uwe (wilhelm@cs.cornell.edu or wilhelm@lse.epfl.ch)
------------------------------
From: mikeb@ssd.fsi.com (Mike Bates x581)
Date: 30 Mar 1995 12:27:57 -0600
Subject: Re: Abolishing the IRS
Organization: FlightSafety-SSD, Tulsa, OK, USA
poivre@netcom.com (Serrano) writes: Doesn't the IRS collect other
taxes besides income?? If a sales tax were to be in place, the
govt might still need to use the IRS to collect the sales tax. In
that case, the IRS won't have a need to snoop since the tax will be
collected from merchants etc, and not from individuals.
Snooping is still snooping, even if the target is a merchant. The IRS
will want to know that all sales tax owed is paid and that means
certifying the total sales for a merchant and differentiating between
taxable and non-taxable items. (And count on Congress to produce as
many exemptions for a national sales tax as they do for the income
tax. It's a great way to aid friends and punish enemies.) The
record-keeping burden wouldn't be any less; it would simply be lifted
from those of us who don't sell services or merchandise. (Would
software consultants have to collect sales tax on their fees? Would
auto mechanics? A kid who mows lawns?) If you're an individual
running a small business, an IRS sales tax audit probably won't feel
much more comfortable than an IRS income tax audit.
To my mind, the only way to deal with the IRS is to end direct federal
tax collection by repealing the 16th Amendment. The IRS would then be
concerned only with collecting taxes from each state government in
proportion to the state's population. The state would collect taxes to
cover its own functions and its "contribution" to the Federal
treasury. This doesn't eliminate the privacy problem, but it does
decentralize it, which ought to make a rogue tax department easier to
monitor and control. The ease of moving away from a state with an
rogue tax department ought to work against abuses of power.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Bates FlightSafety International, Simulation Systems Div.
Principal Engineer 2700 North Hemlock Circle
Computer Systems Group Broken Arrow, Oklahoma 74012
mikeb@ssd.fsi.com 918-251-0500 ext. 597
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
From: ACLU Information <infoaclu@aclu.org>
Date: 29 Mar 1995 16:34:34 -0500
Subject: Contact your provider re the Communications Decency Act
A Cyber Liberties Alert
from the ACLU
Urge Your Online Service Providers to Fight the Modified Exon/Gorton
Amendment!
As you know from our previous Cyber Liberties Alerts, Congress is
moving to dramatically restrict the free speech and privacy rights of
online users. On March 23, 1995, the Senate Commerce Committee
approved the Exon/Gorton bill (the so-called "Communications Decency
Act", also known as S.314) as an amendment to the Telecommunications
Competition and Deregulation Act of 1995.
While the proposed legislation was modified to include some defenses
from criminal liability for online service providers, users are still
very much at risk of both massive fines and imprisonment.
The ACLU has written an open letter to online providers, copied below,
that urges them to wage a full-scale fight for the rights of online
users. Some providers are still actively standing up for your rights
while others may not be. There are still opportunities to fight the
legislation in both House and Senate, but the fight will not succeed
without the concerted efforts of online users, civil libertarians, and
online service providers. Remember that the Senate Commerce Committee
approved the Exon/Gorton amendment despite opposition letters and
petition signatures from over 100,000 online users.
ACT NOW:
Write to your online service providers and ask them to make a public
declaration against the Exon/Gorton amendment and to push aggressively
for the greatest amount of free speech and privacy for online users.
(A sample letter is attached.)
Please copy your letter to the following e-mail address:
infoaclu@aclu.org.
In addition, continue to voice your opposition to the Exon/Gorton
Amendment to members of the Senate Commerce Committee and your own
senators. See our previous ACLU Cyber Liberties Alerts for
instructions on how to reach the Senate: gopher://aclu.org:6601.
[COPY]
An Open Letter to Online Providers Regarding the Exon/GortonAmendment
March 28, 1995
On March 23, 1995, the Senate Commerce Committee voted to violate the
civil liberties of every present and future member of the online
community. The so-called "Communications Decency Act" was modified to
include some defenses from criminal liability -- but these are
available only to online service providers. In fact, other
modifications made the legislation worse for users. The Exon/Gorton
amendment remains a blatant violation of the free speech and privacy
guarantees of the Constitution.
We therefore urge all online providers to continue (or, if necessary,
to begin) a full-scale fight for the rights of online users against the
government interference embodied in the Exon/Gorton amendment.
The Exon/Gorton amendment subjects online users to surveillance and
imposes criminal penalties for messages deemed by some government
official to be "indecent, lewd, lascivious or filthy" -- all
communications protected by the First Amendment. By criminalizing the
content of private messages, it would invite active interference in the
basic speech of everyone using a telecommunications device.
The amendment was attached to the Telecommunications Competitionand
Deregulation Act of 1995, which was approved by the Commerce Committee
and is being sent for consideration to the Senate floor. There are
still opportunities to fight the legislation in both House and Senate,
but the fight will not succeed without the concerted efforts of online
users, civil libertarians, and online service providers.
Sexual expression has been a fundamental part of human communication
from the beginning of recorded history. The online community is no
different. There is no question that talk about sex and the exchange
of sexual images has contributed to the vibrant quality of online
communications, and an increasing number of online subscribers. And
Congress need not ban constitutionally protected forms of speech in
order to protect children from sexually explicit materials.
Interactive technologies allow users -- including concerned parents --
to have more control over content than any previous communications
medium. Many of the traditional arguments for restricting sexually
expressive material, such as radio/TV's assault on unwilling listeners
or the fear that a child will wander into an adult bookstore, simply do
not apply to interactive technologies.
Moreover, the Exon/Gorton amendment's censorial sweep encompasses
content that has nothing to do with sex -- anything deemed "indecent"
or "filthy" -- subjective terms that could apply to any message outside
the mainstream. The amendment would make the online community one of
the most censored segments of communications media when logic dictates
that it should be the least censored.
The Exon/Gorton amendment also subjects an industry that has blossomed
without government control to an unprecedented amount of interference
and intrusion.
We applaud those online providers who have both publicly declared their
opposition to the Exon/Gorton amendment and who continue to fight for
the constitutional rights of their subscribers. These providers
recognize that no one in the online community will benefit from an
amendment that seriously threatens the free flow of information and the
diversity of content transmitted over online networks.
To achieve the liberating potential of the information superhighway,
Congress must ensure that interactive technologies enhance rather than
stifle democratic values like user choice.
We therefore call upon ALL online service providers to join online
users and civil libertarians in the fight against the Exon/Gorton
amendment. We urge online service providers to make a public
declaration against the amendment and to push aggressively for the
greatest amount of free speech and privacy for online users.
American Civil Liberties Union "Eternal vigilance is the price of
liberty"
SAMPLE LETTER Dear [name of each of your online service providers]:
I am writing, as a user of your service, to urge you to make a public
declaration against the Exon/Gorton amendment to the Telecommunications
Competition and Deregulation Act of 1995. While providing defenses from
criminal liability for online providers, the Exon proposal leaves
online users at risk of large fines and imprisonment for
constitutionally protected speech.
I urge you to:
*Make a public declaration against the Exon proposal.
*Aggressively lobby the Senate to vote against the Exon proposal, and
aggressively lobby to prevent similar proposals in the House version of
the telecommunications reform legislation.
*Continue to push for the greatest amount of free speech and privacy
for online users.
Sincerely,
[name]
The American Civil Liberties Union is a nationwide, nonpartisan
organization of over 275,000 members. Now in its 75th year, the ACLU
is devoted exclusively to protecting the civil liberties guaranteed by
the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, whereever these liberties are
at risk -- in a bookstore, in school, on the street, in cyberspace,
wherever. The ACLU does this through legislative action, public
education and litigation.
--
ACLU Free Reading Room | American Civil Liberties Union
gopher://aclu.org:6601 | 132 W. 43rd Street, NY, NY 10036
mailto:infoaclu@aclu.org| "Eternal vigilance is the
ftp://ftp.pipeline.com | price of liberty"
------------------------------
From: "Prof. L. P. Levine" <levine@blatz.cs.uwm.edu>
Date: 29 Dec 1994 10:50:22 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Info on CPD [unchanged since 12/29/94]
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
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---------------------------------+-----------------------------------------
Leonard P. Levine | Moderator of: Computer Privacy Digest
Professor of Computer Science | and comp.society.privacy
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Post: comp-privacy@uwm.edu
Box 784, Milwaukee WI 53201 | Information: comp-privacy-request@uwm.edu
| Gopher: gopher.cs.uwm.edu
levine@cs.uwm.edu | Mosaic: gopher://gopher.cs.uwm.edu
---------------------------------+-----------------------------------------
------------------------------
End of Computer Privacy Digest V6 #032
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