NEGATIVE — DISADVANTAGE — FREE SPEECH 176

LINK: CONTROL OF DATABASES

THE FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTS THE RIGHTS TO COLLECT INFORMATION IN DATABASES

Solveig Singleton, director of information studies at the Cato Institute, January 22, 1998 Cato Policy Analysis No. 295 PRIVACY AS CENSORSHIP: A Skeptical View of Proposals to Regulate Privacy in the Private Sector http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-295.html // acs-EE2001

The First Amendment protects citizens' rights to compile information in databases, just as it would protect their right to collect it in a diary or a book. Nowhere does the Constitution restrain the powers of private citizens to collect information. By contrast, some provisions of the Constitution, such as the Fourth Amendment, do constrain the power of government to interfere in our lives and collect information about us, consistent with the fundamental purpose of the Constitution to define and limit the power of government. The drafters of the Constitution saw government as a necessary evil and so established a system to limit the government's powers to those they had explicitly enumerated.

RESTRICTIONS ON PRIVATE DATA COLLECTION VIOLATE FREE SPEECH RIGHTS AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT

Solveig Singleton, director of information studies at the Cato Institute, January 22, 1998 Cato Policy Analysis No. 295 PRIVACY AS CENSORSHIP: A Skeptical View of Proposals to Regulate Privacy in the Private Sector http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-295.html // acs-EE2001

It is generally assumed that private citizens are permitted to take any action that law does not explicitly forbid, whereas the government is generally forbidden to take any action that the Constitution does not allow. Thus, restrictions on private data collection violate First Amendment protections of free speech, whereas restrictions on government databases or on government access to existing private databases simply fulfill the promise of the Fourth Amendment.

ANY LAW THAT RESTRICTS THE COMPILATION OF INFORMATION IS A DIRECT THREAT TO FREE SPEECH

Solveig Singleton, director of information studies at the Cato Institute, January 22, 1998 Cato Policy Analysis No. 295 PRIVACY AS CENSORSHIP: A Skeptical View of Proposals to Regulate Privacy in the Private Sector http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-295.html // acs-EE2001

As we go about our day-to-day affairs, we collect and process an enormous amount of information. This process is so natural and necessary to our lives that we take it entirely for granted. We see it as a serious threat only because advanced telecommunications technology lets us wander about the world in new, automated ways, and we realize that the collection of information has become mechanized as well. It is a mistake to view the collection of information as morally shocking simply because we have never noticed that it goes on.

Any law that restricts the compilation of information endangers free speech. Laws that make it more difficult and expensive to compile databases have a disproportionate impact on small and new businesses that cannot afford other means of growing.