IP: Election 2000, Privacy, and the Internet: PRIVACY Forum Digest V09 #21

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>
>Date:    Sat, 14 Oct 2000 09:03 PDT
>From:    lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator)
>Subject: Election 2000, Privacy, and the Internet
>
>Greetings.  As we enter the home stretch of the current U.S. election cycle,
>a variety of crucial issues loom large, many of which could be greatly
>affected by the outcome of the Presidential and Congressional elections.
>
>Unlike the dreadfully sorry excuse for a representative process demonstrated
>by the recently completed ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
>Numbers) "election" procedure, many millions of persons will be voting in
>the U.S. national elections on Nov. 7.  (For more thoughts on the ICANN
>process, please see the "PFIR Statement on Internet Policies, Regulations,
>and Control" at: http://www.pfir.org/statements/policies.)
>
>In many cases, the serious issues underlying the upcoming Congressional and
>Presidential voting have been obscured or distorted by rhetoric from all
>sides, much of it purposeful and targeted, sometimes in precise,
>privacy-invasive manners.
>
>There are certainly many issues beyond the Internet and privacy to be
>considered.  The dramatic events in the Middle East of the last few days
>seem to assure that international affairs will take a much greater role on
>the election stage than is typical for United States elections.  More
>substantive attention to the international environment by national political
>candidates is long overdue, though I'll admit to not being inspired by most
>of the current candidate crop.  It is worrisome to say the least when, as in
>some current cases, expectations are set so low that a Middle School level
>recitation of international names, pronounced without overt stumbling, is
>categorized by some commentators as acting in a "Presidential" manner.
>Pretty scary stuff...
>
>This year, a variety of privacy-related issues have played significant roles
>in the campaigns for both Congress and the Presidency, beyond the fact that
>the next President is likely to appoint Supreme Court Justices who could
>dramatically affect national privacy policies for many years to come.
>Unfortunately, these matters are all such a mixed bag that it is basically
>impossible to make a rational choice between the two major candidates using
>these issues as a focus.  (I refer at this time only to the "two major
>candidates" with due apologies to those persons who support candidates in
>other parties.  In all honesty, as a practical matter, I do not consider the
>other candidates' current minimal impact on the election process to be
>sufficient grounds to equate them with either the Democratic or Republican
>candidates in terms of potential election outcomes.  Perhaps this will
>change in the future.)
>
>The Internet and privacy issues have become hot-button political topics in a
>variety of quarters.  A number of proposals are pending in Congress that
>would either make matters better, or worse, depending upon your point of
>view.  Bills that address issues of e-mail spam (please see
>http://www.pfir.org/statements/spam for more on this), Social Security
>Numbers, banking privacy and disclosures, spyware -- software that "leaks"
>data back to third parties, and more, are in various legislative stages.
>They are all important, but rarely are discussed within the political arena.
>Privacy issues make for strange bedfellows indeed, with all manner of rather
>bizarre cross-party coalitions responsible for or supporting many of these
>privacy-related proposals.
>
>On the other hand, the Internet has become a most convenient political
>scapegoat for any number of societies' ills, a conduit for privacy-invasive
>behavior by political parties, and a dandy target for political distortions
>in the tradition of old-style politics supreme.  Perhaps the most famous
>recent political distortion in this regard is the oft-quoted line about
>Al Gore claiming that he invented the Internet.  He of course never made that
>statement.  He did say that he was proud of the initiative he had taken in
>the creation of the Internet, a statement that many Internet old-timers have
>validated.  The publicly-accessible Internet as we know it today was
>largely a political creation, the child of the Defense Department ARPANET
>and directly related to Congressional initiatives in which Al Gore had a
>major role.  He never claimed the inventing of Internet technology.  Be that
>as it may, some who would prefer to draw attention away from actual records
>find it convenient to distort his statements.  Politics as usual -- and both
>parties play the game.
>
>Nor does either party seem to have much to be proud of when it comes to the
>the use of personal data in attempts manipulate voters, especially this
>year.  Last December, I discussed the operations of Aristotle Publishing
>(in the PRIVACY Forum issue at: http://www.vortex.com/privacy/priv.08.22).
>Firms like Aristotle match up voter registration records with personal data
>provided at Web sites, and in some cases with a variety of other personal but
>public record data (where you live, how much your house is worth, what sort
>of neighborhood you live in, what kind of car you drive, etc.) to create
>personalized pitches on behalf of their political clients.  Outside of the
>fact that many people find this sort of dossier creation extremely offensive
>and intrusive, it also results in the real positions of the parties becoming
>increasingly foggy, as they attempt to present themselves as precisely what
>they think an individual voter would want to see, either through phone
>calls, physical mail, or increasingly via e-mail.  It's easy for any
>underlying truths to be effectively buried by such technologies, which both
>parties are apparently relying upon to ever-increasing degrees.
>
>As I mentioned, even as the parties use these technologies to their
>advantage, and candidates promote the Internet as an educational wonder,
>they also treat the Internet as a convenient scapegoat to flog for all
>manner of perceived societal problems which have existed since long before
>the Internet's appearance.  During a brief exchange concerning gun control in
>the second Presidential Debate, candidate George W. Bush appeared to
>directly equate use of the Internet with causing children to commit gun
>crimes.  A convenient argument, but seemingly much more pandering than
>addressing reality.
>
>Unfortunately, both political parties seem to be charter members of the
>Internet blame game.  Congress on a bipartisan basis keeps pushing for, and
>both Presidential candidates have apparently endorsed, various forms of
>privacy-invasive Internet rating, content control, and filtering programs,
>even in the face of most software filters' abysmally repressive and
>inaccurate performance (http://www.pfir.org/statements/ratings).  It appears
>to be "good politics" to blame the Internet for problems with our youths,
>just as comic books, rock music, and long (male) hair were routinely
>condemned years ago.  Real evidence is not required -- just repeat the party
>lines often enough and perhaps the people will believe them to be true.
>
>As bad as all this looks, it could be worse.  By the time of the next
>Presidential election four years from now, we're likely to see the issue of
>Internet Voting in local, state, and national elections take center stage.
>As discussed in http://www.pfir.org/statements/voting, this concept opens up
>a nightmarish Pandora's Box of privacy, security, reliability, accuracy, and
>related problems, most of which are not subject to obvious or simple
>solutions.  Yet, the pressure to increase voting turnout by letting people
>vote at home from their PCs will be very strong indeed, and if history is
>any guide, the massive risks inherent in such online voting schemes will be
>largely ignored amidst rosy forecasts by such systems' promoters and their
>political allies.  If this actually transpires, we're likely to all be the
>losers.
>
>Gee, we haven't even gotten past this election yet, and already Lauren is
>offering worries for next time -- he's a regular ray of sunshine!  Well,
>these issues will all be dealt with, one way or another, in due course.
>No need to panic *quite* yet.  For now, take a deep breath, consider your
>options carefully, and for those of you eligible to do so, please be sure to
>vote.  For all the rhetoric and spin, political mayhem and manipulation,
>your vote still counts, and voting is still exceptionally important to our
>future.  After all, as the famous political adviser "Criswell" suggested in
>the film "Plan 9 From Outer Space" -- you'll be living in the future for the
>rest of your life!
>
>Take care.  Be seeing you.
>
>--Lauren--
>Lauren Weinstein
>lauren@pfir.org or lauren@vortex.com or lauren@privacyforum.org
>Co-Founder, PFIR: People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
>Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
>Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
>
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>
>End of PRIVACY Forum Digest 09.21
>************************