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Re: Clinton outlines new privacy legislation



Clinton's come a long ways from the CLipper Chip days. Of course, he's had
some experiences that we would have called "radicalizing" in the
past. Even Monica has been out pitching for privacy.
A quick story, David Lytel was one of the guys that the White House that
we worked with whilst they developed their web site. Dave said his
blackest day was having to defend the clipper chip at the Computers,
Freedom, & Privacy Conference (www.cfp.org). Later, tho Dave called to say
he had left White House and he was now working with private industry. With
the RIAA, he hoped to put a special tracing program at university network
entry points and so trace down MP3 sites. napster seems to have done a
much better job.
What James is arguing for seems too utopian to work for me. We have
federal laws about banking and privacy now, CLinton seems to me (on an
admittedly brief reading) to be translating that law into something that
reflects the current times and practices. Obviously the transparency that
say David Brin and it seems James are advocating is not guaranteed without
some sort of umpire on the field. Selfregulation hasn't worked. TRUSTe and
the like have failed at their first tests. That leaves goobermint. Unless
someone has another idea. Got one?
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                             Paul Jones
   "We must protect our precious bodily fluids!" General Jack D Ripper
http://MetaLab.unc.edu/pjones/ at the Site Formerly Known As SunSITE.unc.edu
  pjones@MetaLab.unc.edu   voice: (919) 962-7600     fax: (919) 962-8071 
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