WASHINGTON — Americans reluctant to answer questions in the long-form census wonder: Who gets access to this private information? Though misplaced against the census takers, this suspicion reflects a growing sense that our lives are too often open books. The most feared gossips are the federal government, conglomerating industries and Internet marketers.
The feds are supposedly restrained by the Privacy Act of 1974. But the same Pentagon that gleefully made public Linda Tripp's file containing a teenage arrest record now cites privacy concerns in refusing to identify the male general accused of making a pass at the highest-ranking female officer. Rank — and now sex — hath its privilege.
President Clinton revealed last week that he never even thought about the Privacy Act when he ordered White House files opened to discredit his accuser Kathleen Willey. A federal judge just cited him for a "criminal violation" of the act; the misdemeanor will never be prosecuted.
Set aside partisan views of the private citizens who drew the federal ire. The principle is that the government is obliged by law to protect its dossiers on each of us. When the White House or Pentagon fails in this duty, we lose confidence in the confidentiality of anything we are required to tell the government.
Turn now to the second great encroacher on our personal privacy: merged corporate empires pooling information to zero in on consumer tastes and locations.
Privacy laws are needed to stop them. Your employer can now find out what drugs you are taking and what your school marks were. Your mortgage lender can now tell what credit card purchases you make. Your global communications conglomerate can track and share with marketers your taste in news and entertainment. You are environed by nosiness.
The invaders' intent can be innocent. An American Express security checker called me recently to ask if I spent a bundle in a Victoria's Secret outlet in a town I never heard of. When I expostulated heatedly that I had been overseas at the time of purchase, the courteous Amex man said not to worry, my card number had been stolen and I would not be charged. But later, to certify my identity for a new card over the phone, a recorded voice asked for my Social Security number.
Sorry; that number, like my passport number, is my private business. The government has a right to ask for it on census or income-tax documents, but it must not become a national identity number.
That brings us to the Internet companies and the "engineering of consent," in the phrase coined by the public relations pioneer Edward Bernays.
E-commerce presents the most sophisticated danger of privacy penetration. Companies place "cookies" in your computer to monitor your tastes: not only what you buy but where you browse. Some people do not mind being shadowed, with their habits and interests passed around among marketers like a plate of cookies; it pleases them to be offered similar merchandise. Others prefer not to have our computers watching us and ratting to the world.
The stalkers of computerized marketing should not be allowed to follow you without your consent. Getting your consent — in writing or responding with a keystroke — is their job, and it cannot be on the tricky basis of "unless you say no, we'll go ahead" — what's called opt out. Here's the bright line: Unless you affirmatively give your consent, the answer is no.
This issue of "the right to be let alone" vs. "the freedom to sell" is too hot for White House occupants or candidates. Sens. Richard Shelby and Bob Torricelli and Rep. Ed Markey are the heroes of privacy protection, but most solons are nervous about crossing corporate contributors.
For the feds: Make willful violation of existing privacy law a felony. For mega-mergerers: Prohibit sharing of personal data. For e-commercialists: Make tomorrow the age of consumer consent, requiring "opt in." And make illegal any corporate coercion to make you reveal your Social Security number.
New York Times News Service