"I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. . . . And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well."
-- John F. Kennedy honoring Robert Frost, Oct. 26, 1963
ENDORSEMENTS
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AROUND THE CORNER
Always evolving, the Uncommon Denominator proudly introduces a new section devoted to the identification and analysis of emerging cultural and political trends. Lying "around the corner" as they do, these trends merit particular attention because they hold both peril and opportunity. The decisions we make today - or do not make - can have profound consequences for future generations, so it is important to address such issues now, as they arise, rather than fighting a rear-guard action down the road.
How can we begin to shape constructive attitudes and behaviors toward new technologies, social phenomena, and economic or political changes? How should we interpret and respond to such developments, and what should we be on the look-out for? What are the policy implications of emerging cultural trends? These are among the questions we should have in mind as we try to look around the corner.
This first installment, written by Philip Leggiere, takes on the issue of new data-collection and data-analysis technology and the potential threats it poses to personal privacy.
Until recently, "intelligence" technologies like data warehousing and database mining seemed part of an arcane nerds-only realm, far removed from everyday life and politics. The wake-up call came in November, 2002, when news arrived of the existence of a Pentagon-affiliated "Office of Information Awareness" and its subsidiary project, "Total Information Awareness" (TIA), a proposed mega-database of privately compiled and public information on every American citizen.
TIA, the brainchild of Admiral John Poindexter (of Iran-Contra fame), has been designed to provide both government intelligence analysts and Federal and local law enforcement officials with instantaneous access to personal information collected from every available source. Your credit card bills? Fair game. Medical records? Fair game. Travel itineraries, supermarket receipts, real estate transations, Internet histories, driving records, school transcripts, even library books - all fair game, apparently without the need for a search warrant (at least according to preliminary Pentagon descriptions of the "demonstration project").
Whether it's currently technically feasible or not, the specter of TIA has brought home in a dramatic way the fact that we live in what author Simson Garfinkel has called a "Database Nation." That may not surprise anyone who has grown up since the advent of computerized records. What's seldom realized, however, is the extent to which the personal data collected about us has taken on a phantom life of its own in cyberspace.
Highly detailed information about our personal lifestyles, social habits, political activities, and financial histories can now be freely circulated, bought and traded by corporations we've never done business with or even heard of. We can be profiled in minute detail without our knowledge, consent, or control - and, in large part, without any effective public regulation.
This data warehousing and database mining is made possible by the convergence of new hardware and software technologies, such as: data storage warehouses capable of storing information by "petabytes" (one petabyte equals about 300 billion pages), super-high-speed parallel processing computers, and advanced "intelligent agent" searchware. Through the 1980s, database search technology was capable of relating only a limited number of variables (e.g., how many of our customers are female, married, over 25 and live in the Southwest?). Now, data mining tools can not only analyze many variables over multiple databases, but can "learn" from the process, identifying hidden patterns in apparently random data and piecing together predictions about future behavior.
Privacy law hasn't been able to keep up. Alhough the 1974 Privacy Law prohibits government from compiling dossiers on individuals without probable cause of criminality, its protection does not prevent private companies from doing so nor from providing them to government agencies. Currently, private companies may collect and analyze online and offline transaction information without the knowledge and consent of the individuals profiled, and use that information almost entirely at their own discretion. Recent legislation - including the Cyber Security Enhancement Act of 2002 and the Online Personal Privacy and Consumer Privacy Protection Acts of 2002 - do not adequately address these issues.
The legislation fails to require informed consent for the sale and use of personal information by database compilers, to ensure citizens' access to information disclosed about them to third parties, or to provide mechanisms for correcting false information. The recent U.S.A. Patriot Act also radically expands the ability of government to access profiling information from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) without specific evidence of wrongdoing.
The Magna Carta for intelligence technology legislation was written in 1973, when a commission of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), convened by then Attorney General Elliott Richardson, drafted a "Code for Fair Information Practices." Most importantly, it called for public oversight of record-keeping systems and the ability of individuals to access the information compiled about them, to prevent it from being used without their consent, and to correct false or misleading information. Sadly, this code has been largely ignored by both corporations and government.
The time is right for a legislative program to turn Richardson's principles into effective policy. The program, which can unite principled conservative constitutionalists and progressives, should encompass five major points:
1) The Privacy Act of 1974 should be amended to include protection for personal data held by private third parties.
2) Specific permission must be granted for all disclosure of personal information to third parties, and individuals should have the right to inspect and, if necessary, correct all information concerning them.
3) Safeguards must be implemented to prevent the disclosure of privately compiled databases to law enforcement without probable cause.
4) Database security technologies should be promoted or mandated as a means of protecting the privacy and anonymity of information held in databases.
5) Appropriate penalties for the misuse of personal information should be implemented to ensure governmental and corporate accountability.
WIT AND WISDOM
"U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan says he can think of no reason to attack Iraq right now. I can think of five off the top of my head: Shell, Exxon, Mobil, Texaco and BP." -- Jay Leno
QUOTED!
"It's a serious problem that people of every aberrant group known to man can apply to the federal trough. . . . And I think the vast majority of American people find this intolerable." - Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," March 5, 2001
CHECK IT OUT
If you've been following the Uncommon Denominator, you know that we're not enamored of SUVs. They're bad for the environment, dangerous to other drivers, and corruptive of America's foreign policy in the Middle East. The tide may be turning, however. As Jeffrey Ball wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 8, 2003: "An unsettling thought is starting to nag at auto makers who rely on sport-utility vehicles for a big chunk of their profits: The biggest SUVs are becoming uncool."
At last! And they may become even more uncool if an organization called the Detroit Project, headed by newspaper columnist Arianna Huffington, succeeds in airing two controversial TV ads which explicitly link SUVs to terrorism.
"This is George," one of the ads says. "This is the gas that George bought for his SUV. This is the oil company executive that sold the gas that George bought for his SUV. These are the countries where the executive bought the oil, that made the gas that George bought for his SUV. And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV." The tagline: "Oil money supports some terrible things. What kind of mileage does your SUV get?"
For background on the rise of the SUV in American culture, you might want to check out Keith Bradsher's High and Mighty: SUVs - The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way (Public Affairs, 2002).
EYE ON THE RIGHT
In the Dec. 27, 2002, edition of the Los Angeles Times, historians Eric Foner and Glenda Gilmore contributed an op-ed piece about the conservative effort to tar academics as "unpatriotic" when they oppose the Bush administration's policies. In the course of their argument, Foner and Gilmore refer to a variety of conservative individuals or organizations, including Campus Watch, William J. Bennett, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, and Lynne Cheney.
What makes this particular list so interesting is not just that they express similar ideas, but that they all take money from the same few right-wing sources. Follow along:
Campus Watch is part of the Middle East Forum, which is funded by The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. William Bennett is a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, funded by The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Richard Mellon Scaife, the Olin Foundation, and the Coors' Castle Rock Foundation, among others. Bennett's organization Empower America is funded by The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Richard Mellon Scaife, and the Olin Foundation. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni is funded by, yes, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Richard Mellon Scaife, the Olin Foundation, and Coors' Castle Rock Foundation, among others. Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, funded by The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Olin Foundation, Coors' Castle Rock Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation.
What this illustrates is the remarkable effectiveness of the right-wing movement in disseminating a narrow ideological perspective through a wide variety of channels. While readers might get the impression that there is a range of viewpoints being expressed, quite the opposite is true. A handful of right-wing foundations and philanthropists are systematically "seeding" political debate in an effort to create the impression of consensus and to shape conventional wisdom. They operate largely behind the scenes, while their paid minions present the public face of conservative ideology.
It is incumbent upon the rest of us to be vigilant in calling attention to this situation. An excellent starting point is Media Transparency, an online source of information about the "media money trail." You can also refer people the Commonweal Institute's collection of links to articles, reports, and resources on the right-wing movement.
HAPPENINGS
The Commonweal Institute is co-sponsoring two Stanford University presentations by author Janine Benyus, whose work focuses on how human society can more effectively address environmental problems through creative solutions based on the "genius of the natural world" rather than on the older industrial model of "heat, beat, and treat." Benyus will speak January 28 ("Surrounded by Genius: Inviting Nature to the Design Table") and January 29 ("Surrounded by Genius: What Can Nature Teach Us About Sustainable Business?"). The talks are open to the public; for tickets call 650-328-7756.
© 2002 The Commonweal Institute
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