I realy enjoyed reading your blog, i needed some info on this subject for my new study economimy in the USA and your post helped me out a lot thank you for that

“…[People] scream bloody murder against laws that allow the government to collate data it already has on citizens, but sign away the same information in a heartbeat to save 10% on their groceries.”

I love the smell of a straw man in the morning. How do you know that the people who “scream bloody murder” about the government are the same ones who are signing away the information for cheap groceries? Both groups might be “people” but that doesn’t mean they’re the same people.

“It’s a free country – companies have a right to dictate the conditions under which they’re willing to sell to a consumer… If you don’t like the terms, then there’s a simple solution: don’t buy the company’s product or service.”

Governments regulate the conditions of commerce all the time.

RENTAL APPLICATION FORM
Name:Current Address:Gender: [ ] Male  [ ] FemaleRace:  [ ] White  [ ] Black  [ ] Brown  [ ] Yellow  [ ] Red  [ ] GreenReligion:  [ ] Christian  [ ] Godless Heathen

Ever seen a rental application form like this?

And yes, regulations to protect privacy exist as well. Have you ever noticed back up in Canada, when you’re filling out a form for cable TV, or phone service, or a credit card, and they ask you for your SIN? There’s usually a little asterisk, and way down at the bottom in fine print there’s a message saying “We will still give you a credit card even if you don’t give us your SIN”. That’s the Canadian government looking out for your privacy. Even down here in the States, you can usually leave the SSN spot on a form blank, and 9 times out of 10 they won’t call you on it. The difference is that the Canadian law says the company must inform you that some of your information is optional.

My point is that when it comes to interactions between corporations and people, it isn’t a free country, no matter which country you’re in. There are already regulations in place. So if you think that there should be more laws protecting citizen’s privacy, you aren’t trying to violate some fundamental principle of civil society – you’re merely looking for a different balance between corporate and personal rights.

Just some rapid-fire suggestions.

On protesting and “free speech cages”: Check out a funny comic (you’ll need to watch an ad first), or read Mailer and Mailer for, among other things, a perspective on the public protests of the 60s versus the “free speech cages” of today.

On government collation of data: Canada tries really hard to avoid this. In theory, there is no “master database” of Canadian citizens; the voter registry is separate from the tax list, which is separate from the criminal justice system, etc. A few years ago the Privacy Commisioner of Canada had to smack down the Ministry of Human Resources for trying to build a master list to prevent welfare fraud.

And finally, although it might sound democratic to tell people to “vote with their dollars”, it’s pretty easy to see that means that people with more dollars get more votes. The reasons why this is bad should be obvious.

(THAT WAS A JOKE)

Seriously though, what interests me about the Human Resources vs. Privacy Commissioner incident is that it shows how a government can decide to limit its own powers, losing a concrete benefit to prevent an abstract harm. Imagine the conversation:

HUMAN RESOURCES: We want to build a central database to prevent welfare fraud.
PRIVACY COMMISSIONER: We think you shouldn’t because central databases are a bad idea.

And yet the Privacy Commissioner won.

In both Canada and the U.S.A., the judicial system is a key part of the checks and balances protecting our rights. But the nature of information means that the courts aren’t such a good place to protect privacy. Once data has leaked, taking the issue to the Supreme Court won’t really help – that’s just closing the barn door once the horses are gone. In order to prevent the abuses before they occur, centralized information must be resisted internally and on principle.

How do you defend a principle within a government? How do you maintain a concept like that in a closed society of civil servants and politicians? Well, one way to do it is to create a position like the Privacy Commissioner, whose job is to advocate one specific position: that the privacy rights of citizens need to be protected against the good intentions of corporations and governments.