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The serial number is accessible to the cellular telephone network, and as cellular telephones add Internet browsing and E-mail capabilities, it will potentially have the same
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Other examples include DIVX DVD disks, which come with a serial number that permits tracking the use of each movie by a centralized network-recording system managed by the companies that sell the disks.
FEARING THE MISUSE OF ALL THOSE NUMBERS
Industry executives say that as the line between communications and computing becomes increasingly blurred, every electronic device will require some kind of identification to attach to the network
Making those numbers available to networks that need to pass information or to find a mobile user while at the same time denying the information to those who wish to gather information int o vast data bases may be an impossible task.
Privacy adv ocates argue that even if isolated numbers look harmless, they are actually harbingers of a trend toward ever more invasive surveillance networks.
``Whatever we can do to actually minimize the collection of personal dat a is good,' said March Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Inf ormation Cen ter, one of three groups trying to organize a boycott of Intel's chips.
The groups are concerned that the Government will require ever more invasive hardware modifications to keep track of individuals. Already they point to the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which requires that telephone companies modify their network switches to make it easier for Government wiretappers.
Also, the Federal Communications Commission is developing regulations that will require every cellular telephone to be able to report its precise location for ``911'' emergency calls. Privacy gro ups are worried that this feature will be used as a tracking technology by law enforcement officials.
``The ultimate danger is that the Government will mandate that each chip have special logic added'' to track identifies in cyberspace, said Vernor Vinge, a computer scientist at San Diego State University. ``We're on a slide in that direction.''
Mr. Vinge is the author of ``True Names'' (Tor Books, 1984), a widely cited science fiction novel in the early 1980's, that forecast a world in which anonymity in computer networks is illegal.
Intel executives insist that their chip is being misconstrued by privacy gro ups.
``We're going to start building security architecture into
our chips, and this is the first step,'' said Pat Gelsinger, Intel vice
president and general manager of desktop products. ``The discouraging part of
this is our objective is to accomplish privacy.
``We need to find ways to distinguish between security and identity,'' said James X. Dempsey, a privacy exp ert at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington lobbying organization.
So far the prospects are not encouraging. One technical solution developed by a cryptographer, David Chaum, made it possible for individuals to make electronic cash payments anonymously in a network.
In the system Mr. Chaum designed, a user employs a different number with each organization, thereby insuring that there is no universal tracking capability.
But while Mr. Chaum's solution has been widely considered ingenious, it has failed in the marketplace. Last year, his company, Digicash Inc. based in Palo Alto, Calif., filed for bankruptcy protection.
``Privacy nev er seems to sell,'' said Bruce Schneier, a cryptographer and a computer industry consultant. ``Those who are interested in privacy don 't want to pay for it.''
--
Privacy Isn 't Dead Yet
It seems self-evident that information abo ut your shoe size does not need to be as well guarded as information abo ut tests ordered by your doctor. But with the Federal and state governments' piecemeal approach to privacy pro tection, if we release information abo ut one facet of our lives, we inadvertently expose much about the others.
During Senate hearings in 1987 about Robert Bork's fitness to serve as a Supreme Court justice, a reporter found out which videotapes Mr. Bork rented. The response was the enactment of the Video Privacy Pro tection Act. Another law prohibits the Social Security Administration (but hardly anybody else) from releasing our Social Security numbers. Still other laws limit what states can do with information tha t we provide to motor vehicle departments.
Congress is now seeking to add some more panels to this crazy quilt of narrowly drawn privacy law s. The House recently endorsed a bill to prohibit banks and securities and insurance companies owned by the same parent corporation from sharing personal med ical information. An d Congress is grappling with laws to prevent some information abo ut our mutual-fund holdings from being sold and bought as freely as hot dogs.
But with superpowerful computers and vast databases in the private sector, personal inf ormation can 't be segmented in this manner. For example, in 1996, a man in Los Angeles got himself a store card, which gave him discounts and allowed the store to trace what he purchased. After injuring his knee in the store, he sued for damages. He was then told that if he proceeded with his suit the store would use the fact that he bought a lot of liquor to show that he must have fallen because he was a drunkard.
Some health insurers try to ``cherry pick'' their clients, seeking to cover only those who are least likely to have genetic problems or contract costly diseases like AIDS. Some laws prohibit insurers from asking people directly about their sexual orientation. But companies sometimes refuse to insure those whose vocation (designer?), place of residence (Greenwich Village?) and marital status (single at 40-plus?) suggest that they might pose high risks.
Especially comprehensive privacy inv aders are ``cookies''--surveillance files that many marketers implant in the personal com puters of people who visit their Web sites to allow the marketers to track users' preferences and transactions. Cookies, we are assured, merely inform marketers about our wishes so that advertising can be better directed, sparing us from a flood of junk mail.
Actually, by tracing the steps we take once we gain a new piece of information, co okies reveal not only what we buy (a thong from Victoria's Secret? Anti depressants?) but also how we think. Nineteen eighty-four is here courtesy of Intel, Microsoft and quite a few other corporations.
All this has led Scott McNealy, the chairman and chief executive of Sun Microsystems, to state, ``You already have zero privacy--ge t over it.'' This pronouncement of the death of privacy is premature, but we will be able to keep it alive only if we introduce general, all-encompassing protections over segmented ones.
Some cyberspace anonymity can be provided by new technologies like anti-cookie programs and encryption software that allow us to encrypt all of our data. Corporate self-regulation can also help. I.B.M., for example, said last week that it would pull its advertising from Web sites that don't have clear privacy pol icies. Other companies like Disney and Kellogg have voluntarily agreed not to collect information abo ut children 12 or younger without the consent of their parents. And some new Government regulation of Internet commerce may soon be required, if only because the European Union is insisting that any personal inf ormation abo ut the citizens of its member countries cannot be used without the citizen's consent.
Especially sensitive information sho uld get extra protection. But such selective security can work only if all the other information abo ut a person is not freely accessible elsewhere.
--
A Middle Ground in the Privacy War ?
Jim Hightower, the former agriculture commissioner of Texas, is fond of saying that ``there's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.''
It's punchy, and has become a rallying cry of sorts for activists on all sides. But is it right? Amitai Etzioni, a professor at George Washington University, thinks not. He thinks he has found a workable middle ground between the combatants in one of the fiercest fights in our high-tech society: the right of privacy. < p> Etzioni has carved out a place for himself over the decades as a leader in the ``communitarian'' movement. Communitar ianism works toward a civil society that transcends both government regulation and commercial intrusion--a society where the golden rule is as important as the rule of law, and the notion that ``he who has the gold makes the rules'' does not apply.
What does all that have to do with privacy? Et zioni has written a new book, ``The Limits of Privacy,'' that applies communitarian principles to this thorny issue.
For the most part, the debate over privacy is carried out from two sides separated by a huge ideological gap--a gap so vast that they seem to feel a need to shout just to get their voices to carry across it. So Etzioni comes in with a theme not often heard, that middle of the road that Hightower hates so much.
What he wants to do is to forge a new privacy doc trine that protects the individual from snooping corporations and irresponsible government, but cedes individual privacy rig hts when public health and safety are at stake--``a balance between rights and the common good,'' he writes.
In the book, Etzioni tours a number of major privacy iss ues, passing judgment as he goes along. Pro-privacy dec isions that prohibited mandatory testing infants for HIV, for example, take the concept too far and put children at risk, he says. Privacy adv ocates' campaigns against the government's attempts to wiretap and unscramble encrypted messages, he says, are misguided in the face of the evil that walks the planet.
The prospect of some kind of national ID system, which many privacy adv ocates view as anathema, he finds useful for catching criminals, reducing fraud and ending the crime of identity theft. The broad distribution of our medical records for commercial gain, however, takes too much away from us for little benefit to society.
I called Etzioni to ask about his book. He said civil libertarians talk about the threat of government intrusion into our lives, and government talks about the threat of criminals, but that the more he got into his research, the more it seemed that the two
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He's horrified, for example, by recent news that both Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. have included identifier codes in their products that could be used to track people's online habits: ``They not only track what we are doing,'' he says. ``They track what we think.''
His rethinking of privacy lea ds him to reject the notions that led to a constitutional right of privacy, be st expressed in the landmark 1965 case Griswold v. Connecticut.
In that case, Justice William O. Douglas found a right of privacy in the ``penumbra,'' or shadow border, of rights granted by other constitutional amendments--such as freedom of speech, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom from having troops billeted in our homes.
Etzioni scoffs at this ``stretched interpretation of a curious amalgam of sundry pieces of various constitutional rights,'' and says we need only look to the simpler balancing act we've developed in Fourth Amendment cases governing search and seizure, which give us privacy pro tection by requiring proper warrants before government can tape a phone or search a home.
``We cannot say that we will not allow the FBI under any conditions, because of a cyberpunk dream of a world without government, to read any message.'' He finds such a view ``so ideological, so extreme, that somebody has to talk for a sense of balance.''
I was surprised to see, in the acknowledgements in his book, warm thanks to Marc Rotenberg, who heads the Electronic Privacy Inf ormation Cen ter. Rotenberg is about as staunch a privacy adv ocate as I know, and I can't imagine him finding much common ground with Etzioni--but Etzioni told me that ``Marc is among all the people in this area the most reasonable. One can talk to him.''
So I called Rotenberg, too. He said he deeply respects Etzioni, but can't find much in the book to agree with. For all the talk of balance, he say, ``we have invariably found that when the rights of the individual are balanced against the claims of the community, that the individual loses out.''
We're in the midst of a ``privacy cri sis'' in which ``we have been unable to come up with solutions to the privacy cha llenges that new business practices and new technologies are creating,'' Rotenberg told me.
The way to reach answers, he suggested, is not to seek middle ground but to draw the lines more clearly, the way judges do in deciding cases. When a criminal defendant challenges a policeman's pat-down search in court, Rotenberg explained, ``the guy with the small plastic bag of cocaine either gets to walk or he doesn't. ..... Making those lines fuzzier doesn't really take you any closer to finding answers.''
As you can see, this is one argument that isn't settled. But I'm glad that Etzioni has joined the conversation--both for the trademark civility he brings to it, and for the dialogue he will spark.
Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Privacy Pro tection Study Commission Act of 1999 with my colleague, Senator KOHL. This legislation creates a Commission to comprehensively examine privacy con cerns. This Commission will provide Congress with information to facilitate our decision making regarding how to best address individual privacy pro tections.
The rise in the use of information tec hnology--particularly the Internet, has led to concerns regarding the security of personal inf ormation. As many as 40 million people around the world have the ability to access the Internet. The use of computers for personal and business transactions has resulted in the availability of vast amounts of financial, medical and other information in the public domain. Information abo ut online users is also collected by Web sites through technology which tracks an individual's every interaction with the Internet.
Despite the ease of availability of personal inf ormation, th e United States is one of the few countries in the world that does not have comprehensive legal protection for personal inf ormation. Th is is in part due to differences in opinion regarding the best way to address the problem. While some argue that the Internet's size and constantly changing technology demands government and industry self-regulation, others advocate for strong legislative and regulatory protections. And, still others note that such protections, although necessary, could lead to unconstitutional consequences if drafted without a comprehensive understanding of the issue. As a result, congressional efforts to address privacy con cerns have been patchwork in nature.
This is why Senator KOHL and I are proposing the creation of a Commission with the purpose of thoughtfully considering the range of issues involved in the privacy deb ate and the implications of self-regulation, legislation, and federal regulation. The Commission will be comprised of experts in the fields of law, civil rights, business, and government. After 18 months, the Commission will deliver a report to Congress recommending the necessary legislative protections are needed. The Commission will have the authority to gather the necessary information to reach conclusions that are balanced and fair.
Americans are genuinely concerned about individual
privacy. Th e Privacy Com mission proposed by Senator
KOHL and myself will enable Congress and the public to evaluate the
extent to which we should be concerned and the proper way to address those
concerns. The privacy deb ate is
multifaceted and I encourage my colleagues to join Senator KOHL and
myself in our efforts to gain a better understanding of it. Senator KOHL
and I look forward to working with all those interested in furthering this
debate and giving Americans a greater sense of confidence in the security of
their personal inf ormation.
S. 1902. A bill to require disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act regarding certain persons and records of the Japanese Imperial Army in a manner that does not impair any investigation or prosecution conducted by the Department of Justice or certain intelligence matters, and for other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
JAPANESE IMPERIAL ARMY DISCLOSURE ACT OF 1999
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Japanese Imperial Army Disclosure Act of 1999.
This legislation will require the disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act classified records and documents in the possession of the U.S. Government regarding chemical and biological experiments carried out by Japan during the course of the Second World War.
Let me preface my statement by making clear that none of the remarks that I will make in discussing this legislation should be considered anti-Japanese. I was proud to serve as the President of the Japan Society of Northern California, and I have done everything I can to foster, promote, and develop positive relations between Japan, the United States, China, and other states of the region. The legislation I introduce today is eagerly sought by a large number of Californians who believe that there is an effort to keep information abo ut possible atrocities and experiments with poisonous gas and germ warfare from the pubic record.
One of my most important goals in the Senate is to see the development of a Pacific Rim community that is peaceful and stable. I have worked towards this end for over twenty years. I introduce this legislation to try to heal wounds that still remain,
particularly in California's Chinese-American community.
This legislation is needed because although the Second World War ended over fifty years ago--and with it Japan's chemical and biological weapons experimentation programs--many of the records and documents regarding Japan's wartime activities remain classified and hidden in U.S. Government archives and repositories. Even worse, according to some scholars, some of these records are now being inadvertently destroyed.
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