“There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual consent and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
James Madison
To the framers of our Constitution and Bill of Rights in their noble attempt to ensure maximum freedom and privacy for individuals, the issue of personal privacy was not of overriding concern. Rather, the absolute right to one’s privacy was simply taken for granted!
Over the next hundred years, our customs, rural agrarian population and existing technologies served to preserve the right of individuals to be left alone, if not ignored. Since then, the growth and intrusion of government institutions and segments of the private sector have slowly but inexorably eroded many fundamental rights, including those protecting individual privacy.
During this century, our social fabric and technological developments have changed at a frantic pace. Concurrently, individuals agitating for a larger, more activist government achieved political power. In the process, it was deemed necessary to collect and maintain increasingly larger volumes of data on private citizens.
Today, the marriage of computer and communications technologies have bred a multi-billion dollar industry which procures, manipulates and markets a staggering amount of information on the public and private lives of American citizens … including details of a person’s credit, medical, legal and consumer purchase histories.
Compounding this problem is a lack of any moral or legal obligation on the part of private-sector companies to ensure all information they disseminated is accurate. There have been thousands of documented “horror stories” where inaccurate reports have ruined people’s lives.
Under public pressure, Congress periodically acts. However, rather than moving swiftly to protect the public, it caves into the industry pressures and predictably schedules a series of inconclusive and unproductive hearings … and god knows how private encounters with legions of well-paid industry lobbyists.
Meantime, in a desperate attempt to fend off any potential Congressional restrictions, last year several of the industry’s giants “magnanimously” announced they will provide anyone who asks with an annual copy of their credit report, generally without cost … an action resisted for years.
Regretfully, this furor begs the fundamental question … whether any entity has the right to maintain and distribute credit histories medical reports and/or other personal profiles on individuals without their specific consent.
As most details contained in these reports are not public, they must necessarily be assembled (although not verified) from numerous sources, including purchased data bases and anonymous informants who have rarely, if ever, been authorized to release such information by the individuals concerned.
Federal laws closely regulate what limited types of information on individuals can be maintained or released by employers, schools and governmental agencies; thereby seemingly supporting individual rights to privacy. Yet private sector parasites continue to have a free rein to collect, maintain and peddle information on private citizens to anyone with the interest in, and/or cash to purchase it.
Banks, financial institutions, credit card dispensers, retailers and countless other commercial entities which extend credit contend without their present, unlimited access to such data, the issuance of credit to individuals would be a difficult, if not impossible task. Firms selling mailing lists argue restrictions would effectively put them out of business. If so, that’s their collective problem!
Individuals seeking credit or wishing to have their names and address bought and sold will continue to have the voluntary option to authorize TRW, Dun & Bradstreet, Telephonic-Info or anyone else to assemble, maintain and release such information on them.
However, for those persons who wish to be totally ignored by this unwelcome and intrusive industry, they must have the right to do so … and not have to worry some distant company and nameless computer operator is the steward of their most private financial and other personal information. If subsequent credit availability or consumer catalog then eludes them, it becomes a consequence of their own actions with which they must cope.
The line must be drawn between the government’s and/or business’ alleged need for information on private citizens and the right to personal privacy to which every citizen is entitled.
Rather than parading hoards of witnesses through Congressional office buildings before enacting some legislation to placate the public or, alternatively, trying to micro-manage this industry, Congress must act to preserve the rights of its citizens … and enact one simple law, baring any entity from accumulating and/or distributing information on private individuals without their express, written consent. Its failure to do so can only be interpreted as another example of our government’s contempt for, and misunderstanding of the basic rights of its citizens.
The right to personal privacy greatly outweighs any and all economic interests … and must be vigorously protected!
