Privacy is Not Partisan
The recent hacking of Gov. Sarah Palin’s email accounts is the latest in a series of events that show how urgently we need better privacy protections in this country – and that privacy is an issue that transcends partisan politics.
Although we face unprecedented threats to our privacy, many Americans still shrug their shoulders and say, “I have nothing to hide.”Government officials use this complacency to pry further into our personal lives, justifying the wholesale capture of all communications between Americans and their friends and relatives abroad, for example, by saying that only the terrorists need fear scrutiny.
Most readers of this blog know this is bogus, and recognize that privacy is a fundamental ingredient to a free society. But for those who think they have nothing to hide, the Presidential campaign has provided at least two chilling examples of how bad actors take advantage of our weak privacy protections. In March, the passport accounts of Sens. Barack Obama, John McCain and Hillary Clinton were hacked by rogue employees at the State Department.As the ACLU noted at the time, this was more than just a case of celebrity voyeurism. It was a cautionary tale about the dangers of unprotected data in the information age, and how insiders may exploit it when enforcement of privacy laws is lacking.
Just last week, hackers broke into the Yahoo email account of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. As Kim Zetter chronicled yesterday on Threat Level, the hackers were able to take advantage of information about Palin readily available on the internet — her zip code, birthdate, and where she attended high school.
Admittedly, Gov. Palin has a higher profile than most, but this kind of information is widely available about all of us. If you haven’t disseminated it intentionally through Facebook or one of its lesser populated predecessors, it has likely been collected for you by the growing data-broker industry. And as the Government builds larger identity databases like the one mandated by the Real ID Act, you can bet that cases of internal fraud as well as criminal hacking will become ever more prolific.
It’s clear that at a personal and policy level, the candidates cannot ignore our urgent need for a comprehensive national dialogue about privacy.With breaches affecting three of the four names on the major tickets (and don’t think you’re safe, Joe Biden!), our next President cannot hide behind claims of “nothing to hide.”
Sep 19th, 2008 at 5:40pm
Hey ACLU, speaking of privacy...
Sep 21st, 2008 at 6:25pm
The ACLU screamed when captured terrorists were deprived of "rights", and you have yet come to the defense of Sarah Palin.
You are hypocrites.
Sep 26th, 2008 at 2:37pm
I thought readers of this blog entry might like to see my YouTube video that references this blog at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUt2aIj4Gh8 Fox News Cares About Privacy (or Just Sarah Palin)?
Nov 6th, 2008 at 11:15pm
Hello ACLU,
Why are you silent regarding the State of Ohio invading the pivacy of Joe the Plummer? The man becomes politically involved and State employees use resources of the State in an attempt to dicredit him? He and America need your help to put an end to this! Please spend some of your ample resources to help preserve our rights!
Dan Murphy
Nov 6th, 2008 at 11:16pm
Hello ACLU,
Why are you silent regarding the State of Ohio invading the pivacy of Joe the Plummer? The man becomes politically involved and State employees use resources of the State in an attempt to dicredit him? He and America need your help to put an end to this! Please spend some of your ample resources to help preserve our rights!
Rozanne Murphy
Nov 26th, 2008 at 8:48am
The failure of the ACLU in past and present times, is its own motus for "Sensationalism"--high profile cases that capture the Media's attention.
Here is the caveat........the Media cares only about selling Ad Space or Air Time to its Advertisers--who can afford to advertise--Big Business? Therefore, Big Business and its ties to Organized Crime (The American Bar Association) and those members of the Oligarchy, have common interests--capturing the attention of the Media. It is a vicious cycle of redundancy, repetition and lost time--albeit "Billable Hours" are never lost, now are they?
The American Civil Liberties Union, turned its back on us (my wife and I) almost (3) three-years ago, when we reported the glitch in the Internet Technologies--we discovered after our Small Business' website disappeared and our Computer was constantly crashing, that our ISP (Internet Service Provider) was collusively engaged in "censoring" and re-directing our Browser to fictitious tiers of the Internet, most don't know about. Citing the ACLU "We don't deal in cases like that--Business-related." Since 2006, we've seen Microsoft, just beginining to reveal our complaints to such Internet Technological Abuses in which "Privacy", "Free Speech", "Censorship" and other Civil Liberties were violated--with the echo of the ACLU still ringing........."We don't deal in cases like that--business-related."
Then recently...........the Media began to realize how Telecommunications Companies, consort and collusively abridge the Civil Liberties of Americans by exactly the complaint we tried to file years previously--case in point, Verizon, and other Phone Companies who conspire with the Federal Government, to oust certain people from access to the "real" Internet.
So, again we are here to say, "he who controls the flow of information, via Telecommunications, Internet Technologies or Satelite Relay.......will rule Politics, Civics, Business, Money Flow, Credit and Constitutionality. "Free Speech" and the 1st Amendment, "Privacy" and the 9th Amendment, and "Federal Oversight" and the 14th Amendment in which all Civil Liberties involve some degree of each, must be protected by revealing those who abuse, mock and misuse it.
Too bad the ACLU missed this one, big time!
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