NEGATIVE - DISADVANTAGE — PRIVACY HURTS SECURITY 203

LAW ENFORCEMENT DAMAGED AND CRIME PROMOTED - SHELL

A. UNIQUENESS — CURRENT REGULATIONS FAVOR LAW ENFORCEMENT NEEDS OVER PRIVACY NEEDS

USA TODAY, August 20, 1999, SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 14A TITLE: Congress fails to repair breaches in access to health records // acs-EE2001

And early signals suggest the Department of Health and Human Services won't do much better. Under the rules Congress set up, HHS has until February to come up with its own set of national privacy regulations. In an early draft, HHS basically said that law-enforcement needs trump medical-privacy concerns.

B. PRIVACY PROTECTION MAKES IT MORE DIFFICULT TO FIGHT CRIME

Ann Cavoukian, Ph. D, Info. and Privacy Commission in Ontario, and Don Tapscott, Alliance for Converging Technologies, 1997; WHO KNOWS, EE 2001 -mf p p. 17

The right to privacy may often conflict with efficient law enforcement. If the police could know more about the activities of the "undesirable elements" of our society, then they would be in a better position to eliminate crime. But determining who falls into the "undesirable" category is not an exact science. Police intelligence units try to figure out who the "bad guys" are and then keep track of them, gathering information for the purpose of maintaining "security." (Such intelligencegathering activities are unrelated to the investigation of specific incidents of wrongdoing.) The reach is broad, as a comment by one police chief reflects: "From time to time, intelligence checks out everything about anybody, including myself." This comment was in response to the allegation that the police had compiled a secret file on the civilian head of the police commission-a woman with whom the chief often clashed.

C. WE NEED OPEN RECORDS TO PROTECT PUBLIC SAFETY

ROSEMARY ARMAO, Omaha World-Herald, January 13, 1999, SECTION;EDITORIAL; Pg. 23 TITLE: Danger in 'Privacy Hysteria' // acs-EE2001

Sandra Chance, assistant director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information in Florida, warned during a recent forum about access to information that, in such a fearful atmosphere, we need to look closely at the information laws we are passing. Many are not doing what we want them to do.

Closing motor-vehicle records is one example of this failure. So are the rules going into effect in hospitals nationwide against the issuing of birth announcements. Proud new parents get scary warnings that spreading their joyful news could expose their newborns to kidnappers. Supporters of the warnings concede that kidnappings from hospital nurseries are rare.

In Tennessee, activists are stunned that a state registry of known sex offenders is not open to the public. They might want to keep sex offenders from their children, but state officials worry about invading the privacy of felons.