AFFIRMATIVE PRIVACY — GENERAL 4

PRIVACY HAS NOT BEEN SUFFICIENTLY PROTECTED IN THE STATUS QUO

THE GOVERNMENT HAS AVOIDED BEING INVOLVED IN PRIVACY PROTECTION

Alex Salkever, The Christian Science Monitor, July 26, 1999, SECTION: USA; TECHNOLOGY; Pg. 2 TITLE: Playing 'I spy' in a high-tech world // acs-EE2001

Until now, the US government has been loath to interfere in family matters and has avoided addressing workplace privacy. While there are laws in place governing wiretaps and tape-recorded phone conversations, there are no such laws governing the Internet, cellular-phone records, or other new ways for both friends and strangers to gather information. "By and large, the government has been on the wrong side of these issues," says Mr. Rotenberg [says Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)]. "Our government has typically pushed for more testing. Industry is making a big point of opposing privacy legislation. It's a difficult process to slow down, in part because there are so many arguments that support it."

SINCE THE 1980'S THERE HAS BEEN POLITICAL PRESSURE TO DECREASE GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE REGARDING PRIVACY REGULATIONS

Fred H. Cate, Brookings Institution, 1997; PRIVACY IN THE

INFORMATION AGE, EE2001 -mfp p. 50

Moreover, while the United States has experienced a dramatic increase in regulation and government activism beginning with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, widespread political pressure now exists for reduced government activity, particularly at the federal level. This trend was clearly evident in the 1980s during the Reagan Revolution and, more recently, in the Republican Contract with America and the deregulatory and states-rights activities of the Republican-controlled second session of the 104th Congress. This direction has paralleled and contributed to an undercurrent of anti-internationalism much in evidence during recent U.S. presidential elections. Although globalization may be uniting the world's markets, work forces, and communications, preoccupation with national interest characterizes U.S. relations with multinational bodies, such as the United Nations, and with other nations, especially when important economic, national security, or political interests are at stake.

BACKERS OF PRIVACY ARE INDIVIDUAL AND DIFFUSED, ENEMIES OF PRIVACY ARE HUGE AND ORGANIZED

Jeffrey Rosen, associate professor at the George Washington University Law School, The New York Times April 30, 2000, SECTION: Section 6; Page 46; TITLE: The Eroded Self // acs-EE2001

Americans increasingly seem to agree that Congress should save us from the worst excesses of online profiling. In a Business Week poll conducted in March, 57 percent of the respondents said that the government should pass laws regulating how personal information can be collected and used on the Internet. The European Union for example, has adopted the principle that information gathered for one purpose can't be sold or disclosed for another purpose without the consent of the individual concerned. But efforts to pass comprehensive privacy legislation in the United States have long been thwarted by a political reality: the beneficiaries of privacy -- all of us, in the abstract -- are anonymous and diffuse, while the corporate opponents of privacy are well organized and well heeled.