Re: Children's Privacy Act

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 3:15 AM 5/25/96, Declan B. McCullagh wrote:

>But I tend to think of my (and individual) privacy rights as ones that
>should receive greater attention than a businesses "privacy rights." If
>they have mailing list info on me, I'd like to know where they got it.

Well, I'd like a lot of things, but that doesn't mean I'm entitled to them.

And I think the confusion between "business rights" and "individual rights"
is part of the problem here. That is, I don't see any significant
distinction, nor does the Constitution say anything about rights being
different. At least not for the rights usually considered to be the central
rights. Thus, there is not free speech for individuals, but not for the
owner of a company.

(There are many quibbles that can be made, about the alleged right of
government to regulate business, interstate commerce, etc. And about the
various laws that demonstrably apply to businesses, but not to individuals
(OSHA, business taxes, etc.). And, regrettably, the government has placed
limits on the advertising that companies--or presumably individuals--can
do.)

Not to sound rude to either Declan or Rich, but here's the bottom line:

If I have compiled records, dossiers, etc., as I most assuredly have (got
to fill up those MO disks with something), this is "my" information. Mine
in the sense that others can't dictate to me what I do with it.

What Rich or Declan "wants" is beside the point.

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
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