Re: Fair Credit Reporting Act and Privacy Act

[jamesd@echeque.com]

At 10:32 PM 2/14/96 -0500, Tim Philp wrote:
>	If I apply for a credit card and use it to buy a hockey glove (how
>Canadian eh) I should not expect to be on the mailing list of every
>sporting goods operation in North America!
>
> [...]
>
>	Again, I am not suggesting prior restraint. I simply want to sue 
>the bastards who violated my expectation of privacy.

1.  All so called privacy laws against databases *have* involved 
prior restraint, and thus necessarily involved massive violation 
of privacy by the state.

2.  Absent prior restraint, you may have great difficulty discovering 
whole leaked information concerning you.

3.  Such a law as you propose, without prior restraint, would not 
violate peoples privacy, and for that very reason it is vastly 
unlikely that such a law would ever be passed.  The primary purpose
of laws against acts that are malum prohibitum and not malum in se 
is to empower those that pass them, and the secondary purpose is
to empower established businesses that are threatened by competition.
(The digital telephony act should be called the big three 
preservation act.)

When you say "There ought to be a law", ask yourself who would pass 
such a law, who would enforce such a law, and why.

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