by Simson Garfinkel
Editor: Deborah Russell, Production Editor: Madeleine Newell, Cover Designer: Hanna Dyer
 |
| Database Nation The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century |
My first formal exposure to privacy issues came in 1986, when I took a course in
science, technology, and public policy from Dr. Gary Marx at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. One of the books we read was David Burnham's The Rise of
the Computer State: A Chilling Account of the Computer's Threat to Society. Although
I had been a computer programmer for nearly ten years and had always enjoyed
working with the machines, I knew there were aspects of computers that could easily
be abused. Marx and Burnham opened my eyes to the extent of many of these
problems, and they've both played a continuing role in my education ever since.
Also in 1986, I started reading Peter G. Neumann's RISKS Digest, the Forum on Risks
to the Public in Computers and Related Systems on the Internet. Contributors from all
over the world send contributions to RISKS. Many submissions are stories, anecdotes,
and observations to the forum on ways people have made grave mistakes in deploying
or using computerized systems. Peter's forum has been a constant source of material for
more than decade, and his kindness, wit, and wisdom have likewise been a source of
inspiration. After many years of online communication, I finally got the chance to meet
Peter in person, and we became friends. While Peter was on Martha's Vineyard one
summer, he looked over several chapters of this manuscript and gave me muchappreciated
guidance—he even took me out for dinner and a movie!
Steve Ross at the Columbia University School of Journalism taught me that it's not
enough to have a good story; it's also important to write that story well. Steve also
encouraged me not to bite off too much at one time. When I wanted to write my
master's thesis on "the threat of Social Security numbers," Steve made me focus on a
particular privacy problem—the damage done by tenant screening services. He then
taught me how to sell variations on the story again and again to different publications—
a vital skill for anyone trying to make a living as a writer.
Robert Ellis Smith bought one of those articles based on my master's thesis and printed it
in the Privacy Journal, which he has published relentlessly for more than 25 years.
When I graduated from journalism school, Bob was eager to buy whatever else I wrote
on the subject of privacy. He encouraged me to investigate and write about super
bureaus, automatic fingerprint identification systems, genetic identification systems,
medical privacy issues, and "advances" in marketing. Bob's monthly newsletter, his
compilations of "war stories," and his numerous books about threats to privacy are
required reading for anyone concerned about the ongoing threats to privacy. Bob has also
been instrumental in organizing the Privacy Summit, a semiannual meeting of privacy
activists. He is a privacy powerhouse.
Marc Rotenberg, David Banisar, and David Sobel at the Electronic Privacy Information
Center (EPIC) have been a reliable and eminently quotable source of intelligence
regarding the threats to privacy posed by big government and big business. EPIC's
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits against the FBI and other parts of the
federal government have brought much information to light about the government's
plans to sacrifice privacy on the twin altars of law enforcement and national security.
Marc, in particular, has proven to be a scholar on the subject of privacy theory, and is
one of the strongest voices for pro-privacy legislation in Washington (and that's quite a
tough tune to sing, given the antigovernment libertarian bent of many cyber-rights
activists). He has also been a personal "moral privacy beacon" for me, taking time out
to educate me on issues when we disagree. Almost always, Marc has been able to
convince me of the error of my ways.
Phil Agre was a graduate student at the MIT AI Lab when I was an undergraduate at
the Institute. He has since earned a professorship at UCLA, where he specializes in
privacy issues. Phil's writings and speeches on privacy-enhancing technologies, social
theory, and the role of business have been invaluable in helping me form many of the
fundamental beliefs presented in this volume. Phil has also given me valuable criticism
on many of my books, chapters, and articles.
Many books I've read include a long list of names of people who spoke with the author
while he or she was working on the book. I'm always interested to read this section of
the acknowledgments to see how many names I recognize, but I'm always saddened by
the other names that have no significance for me. What did these people do? How does
the author know them? How did they contribute?
In the course of writing this book, I spoke with several hundred people over the course
of five years. These people answered my questions, responded to my email, and made
time in their busy schedules to speak with me. Each one of them was important to the
final product.
Although I hesitate to try to name them all for fear that I might omit one or two, I would
like to give special thanks to the following:
• Amy Bruckman, who developed the MediaMoo and MooseCrossing artificial worlds
at the MIT Media Laboratory, and who served on the MIT Privacy Committee
• Ram Avrahami, the computer programmer who took on the direct marketing industry, and lost
• John Burgess, the information officer at the U.S. Embassy in London, who took the
time to tell me about video cameras in the United Kingdom
• Jason Catlett, founder of Junkbusters
• Dorothy Denning, a professor at Georgetown University and an expert on the
regulation of encryption
• Dan Ellis, whom I knew as a graduate student at the MIT Media Laboratory, and who
was always interested in privacy issues
• Carl Ellison, a cryptographer extraordinaire who now works for Intel
• Michael Froomkin, one of the most knowledgeable attorneys in the U.S. on the
subject of Internet law, who now teaches at the University of Miami in Florida
• Robert Gellman, an expert privacy analyst who now consults in Washington, D.C.
• John Gilmore, founder of the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) and overall
crypto maven, and now another person convinced that strong cryptography is the
solution to the privacy problem
• Beth Givens, project director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in California
• Janlori Goldman, who has mastered privacy issues working as an analyst at the
ACLU, the EFF, and the CDT
• Lamont Granquist, a really cool computer scientist who hangs out at the University of
Washington in Seattle
• Michael Grant, a dear friend of mine who is extremely concerned with privacy issues,
and who has given me many good stories
• Evan Hendricks, publisher of the Privacy Times newsletter in Washington, D.C.
• Eric Hughes, one of the original cypherpunks, who almost had me convinced that really
good cryptography could preserve personal freedom and liberty
• James Kallstrom, who headed the FBI's New York office and convinced me that he
really cared about civil liberties
• Steve Mann, whom I knew as a graduate student at the MIT Media Laboratory, and
who is famous for walking around with a camera on his head
• Clifford M. Meyer, communications manager at the University of Washington
Graduate School of Public Affairs, who helped me get settled in Seattle and also helped
me organize the Technology and Democracy Study Group there
• Jon Orwant, another graduate student at the MIT Media Laboratory, who did
fundamental work on user modeling before becoming a magazine publisher
• Damsel Plum, the nom de plume of Bastard Nation's publications coordinator
• Pamela Samuelson, an expert on copyright and intellectual property law
• C. B. Rogers, Jr., CEO of Equifax
• Peter Tarczy-Hornoch, an infant neonatologist who spent time with me in Seattle
talking about medical informatics, medical privacy, and equally important issues
• Brad Templeton, an old man of the Internet who has always been concerned about the
interaction of technology and policy
• Bruce Wilder, a physician in Pittsburgh who has done work on the hiding of medical
information from insurance providers
• Ross Stapleton-Gray, who spoke with me about his experience being the subject of
the Internet Hunt, and then continued working with me on a variety of other projects
Part of this book was written during the spring of 1997, while I was a visiting scholar at
the University of Washington in Seattle. Professor Alan Borning in the Computer
Science department set up the appointment for me; Margo Gordon in the School for
Public Affairs was my host. The University of Washington is one of my favorite
colleges in the world. It has an exceptionally beautiful campus, a wide range of
students, and an impressive breadth of classes. While there, I made considerable use of
the school's library system, especially the Suzzallo and Allen Libraries, and the
Odegaard Undergraduate Library. There were many day and evening lectures at UW
that I attended; students who were on campus in the spring of 1997 will see a direct
correspondence between several chapters in this book and the school's special events
calendar of that period. Many professors on campus were exceedingly generous with
their time while I was there; those interviews are a part of this book. I was also helped
by UW's exceedingly efficient public information office. While at UW, I was allowed
to sit in on a class on Medical Information at the UW Medical School, for which I am
also grateful. The School of Public Affairs was also generous enough to give me a
room for evening meetings of a discussion group that I created called the Technology
and Democracy Study Group; many of the ideas that are presented in this volume were
first fleshed out there.
Portions of the manuscript for this book were read by Hal Abelson, Amy Bruckman,
Jason Catlett, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, Sian Gramates, Evan Hendricks, Bernard
Greenberg, Andrew Listfield, Marc Rotenberg, Gene Spafford, and Hal Varian, all of
whom gave me valuable comments and guidance. As with all of its books, O'Reilly put
the manuscript through a formal review process. This wonderful practice is quite rare in
today's publishing world. Alexa Champion, Sian Gramates, Oscar Gandy, Bernard
Greenberg, and Marc Rotenberg all reviewed the entire manuscript and made numerous
suggestions that contributed to making the final product even better. Marc's comments
were exceedingly valuable: often a single sentence forced me to rewrite entire pages!
While working on this book, I came to rely quite heavily on Encyclopedia Britannica's
online service. I never will have the money to buy a complete Britannica set, and at $5
per month for the company's online service, I don't need to. When I started this book,
Britannica charged $14.95 per month and didn't have a privacy policy posted on its web
site. Today, they have a policy that says, in bold letters, "Britannica does not sell, rent,
swap or otherwise disclose any Personal Information." The policy goes on to explain
precisely what information is collected on its web site, what use the site makes of
"cookies," and for what purposes "personal information" is used inside the
organization. It's an impressive policy, and I like to think that I nudged them, in some
small way, to implement it by asking them in 1997 why they didn't have a policy on
their web site. The moral of the story is that organizations can learn to do the right thing.
Those things that I couldn't dig up on Britannica or elsewhere on the Web were
unearthed by my trusty researcher, Jayne Stancavage. Jayne is a much faster worker
than I am, and I fear that she often spent weeks on end wondering if I had given up on
the project. I didn't, of course, and thankfully neither did she.
I've been working on this book on and off since 1989, and in earnest since 1995. Debby
Russell at O'Reilly had known about the project for years, and in 1998 decided to
publish and edit the book. She was instrumental in bringing this book to life. This book
marks the tenth year that Debby and I have been working together; this is the sixth
book that we have jointly produced.
Hanna Dyer created the striking cover for this book; Alicia Cech did a great job on its
internal design; and Edie Freedman and the whole Product Design group at O'Reilly
did wonderful and creative work brainstorming the book's overall design. Michael
Snow manipulated the photomontage in Adobe Photoshop, Edie Freedman created the
keyhole, and John Feingersh/Stock Market photographed the eye.
Chris Reilley did a great job with this book's illustrations, especially considering the
quality of some of the source material. Sara Winge, Cathy Record, and Mark Brokering
did a superb job in the prepublication marketing of this most nontraditional O'Reilly
volume—let's hope the effort pays off!
Production editor Madeleine Newell found literally thousands of typos and cases of
unclear writing, which she also graciously gave me and Debby the time to correct.
Anna Kim Snow, Colleen Gorman, David Futato, Jeff Holcomb, Nancy Kotary, and
Abby Myers provided invaluable quality control and production support. Mike Sierra
implemented the internal design using Adobe FrameMaker 5.5 and provided essential
FrameMaker support. Robert Romano helped organize and traffic the figures. Ellen
Troutman-Zaig wrote the index. Dan Appleman gave this manuscript a thorough
review during production and, thankfully, didn't find any showstoppers.
Finally, I would like to thank my agent, Lew Grimes, who has supported this project
for five long years, and my wife, Beth Rosenberg, whose love, support, understanding,
and wisdom have given me the strength and the time to work on this opus.
—Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Martha's Vineyard
October 1999
Annotated Bibliography and Notes
Annas, George J. Standard of Care: The Law of American Bioethics. London, New
York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Written by a leading bioethicist, Standard of Care explores the intersection between
medicine, society, and the law by examining important bioethics cases that ended up
in the courtroom. Topics in this book include abortion, AIDS, euthanasia, organ
transplantation, and genetic research.
Bertillion, Alphonse (Chief of the Judicial Identification Service of France). Signaletic
Instructions, Including the Theory and Practice of Anthropometrical Identification.
Translated from the latest French edition, with 132 figures, plates and tables. Edited
by Major R. W. McClaughry, late General Superintendent of Police of Chicago.
Chicago: The Werner Company, 1896.
This book describes the Bertillion system of identification, which was among the first
biometric systems to be developed and deployed in modern times.
Brin, David. Earth. New York: Bantam, 1990.
Brin's "no-privacy" vision of the Earth's future paints a world in environmental and
political crisis. Set sometime in the next century, when video cameras are everywhere,
all of the world's data is available cheaply on the data net, and vast destructive
technology is routinely used by renegade individuals. Excellent reading, although the
physics is a bit unlikely.
Brin, David. The Transparent Society. Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1998.
Rather than cling to an illusion of anonymity, Brin argues that we should focus on
guarding the most important forms of privacy and preserving mutual accountability.
The biggest threat to our freedom, Brin warns, is that surveillance technology will be
used by too few people, rather than too many.
Burnham, David. The Rise of the Computer State: A Chilling Account of the Computer's
Threat to Society. New York: Random House, 1983.
Burnham's book was the classic computer privacy and data protection book of the 1980s.
In it, he talks about the rising threat of computer tracking services, credit agencies, tenant
screening services, and worker monitoring. What's sad about this book is that the
majority of the problems Burnham discusses have only gotten worse, and the lack of
legal protection he bemoans has only become more damaging to the fabric of society.
Calvin, William H. Conversations with Neil's Brain: The Neural Nature of Thought
and Language. Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1994.
This book details current developments in neurobiology and microanatomy that may
one day make brain wiretapping possible.
Cavoukian, Ann, and Don Tapscott. Who Knows? Safeguarding Your Privacy in a
Networked World. Toronto: Random House of Canada, 1995.
Written by the one of Canada's data protection commissioners, this book is a good
primer on data protection in the U.S. and Canada.
Cranor, Carl F., ed. Are Genes Us? The Social Consequences of the New Genetics.
New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994.
An excellent primer on genetics, with a special chapter on genetic identification techniques.
Crevier, Daniel. AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence.
New York: Basic Books, 1993.
A comprehensive history of artificial intelligence, with special emphasis on the AI
boom-and-bust of the 1980s.
Cummins, Harold, and Charles Midlo. Finger Prints, Palms and Soles: An
Introduction to Dermatoglyphics. Philadelphia: The Blakiston Company, 1943.
A textbook on fingerprints from the middle of this century. Particularly interesting is
the history of fingerprints and the discussion of the genetic component of fingerprints
that had been observed at the time—before the genetic basis of heredity was understood.
Cushman, Robert E. Civil Liberties in the United States: A Guide to Current Problems
and Experience. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956.
Surveys current civil liberties issues in the United States, with special attention to
racial and sexual discrimination, but gives no attention to privacy issues.
Eaton, Joseph W. Card-Carrying Americans: Privacy, Security, and the National ID
Card Debate. Totowa: Rowman & Littlefield, 1986.
Eaton argues that the United States must adopt a national identification card system in
order to stamp out illegal immigration and provide accountability for people making
changes to computerized records. The card would contain a biometric to validate the
holder. What Eaton fails to anticipate is the widespread deployment of data networks,
and especially wireless data networks, which make such cards unnecessary.
Etzioni, Amitai. The Limits of Privacy. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
Etzioni's controversial book argues that we don't have too little privacy, but too much.
In the area of HIV testing, sex offender registries, cryptography, and ID cards, Etzioni
argues that the rights of the community to know facts about its members outweigh the
rights of individuals to their privacy. Interestingly, the only area in which Etzioni says
we do not have enough privacy is the area of medical records. And here, Etzioni says,
the threat isn't Big Brother—it's Big Business.
Finn, James, and Leonard R. Sussman, eds. Today's American: How Free? New York:
Freedom House, 1986.
This book contains an interesting set of essays exploring freedom in modern society.
Particularly noteworthy is a chapter by John Diebold, president of the Diebold Group,
which explores the impact that computers have had on privacy and freedom.
Flaherty, David H. Privacy in Colonial New England. Charlottesville: University
Press of Virginia, 1972.
Flaherty's doctoral thesis examines the roots of American thought on privacy by
exploring privacy in Boston and other New England towns.
Garson, Barbara. The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the
Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.
Garson's volume investigates the introduction of computers and advanced
telecommunications technologies into the American workplace in the mid-1980s. She
shows that these technologies, originally designed to improve efficiency, were quickly
adopted to monitor workers, even when such monitoring proved ineffective and even
detrimental. Garson contrasts the American experience with Europe, where strict laws
were passed to limit the keystroke-by-keystroke monitoring of workers.
Givens, Beth and the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, with Dale Fetherling. The Privacy
Rights Handbook: How to Take Control of Your Personal Information. New York:
Avon Books, 1997.
Givens' book is based on two concepts: knowledge and action. Using examples from
the thousands of people who have called her organization's California hotline, Givens
explains what's driving companies that are invading our privacy and says what to do
about it. The book is divided into six parts that cover dealing with invasive commerce;
safeguarding personal records; pitfalls of telecommunications; privacy on the job;
personal safety; and activism.
Lalonde, Peter, and Paul Lalonde. The Mark of the Beast: Your Money, Computers, and
the End of the World. Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 1994.
Lalonde and Lalonde paint an apocalyptic vision inspired by Revelations that a new
global economy, and the numbering of the world's inhabitants with marks on their hands
or foreheads, will bring about the end of the world. Although ridiculed by many, this is
another argument that is frequently used against universal enumeration.
Long, Senator Edward V. The Intruders: The Invasion of Privacy by Government and
Industry, with a Foreword by Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. New York: Praeger, 1966.
Senator Edward V. Long headed the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on the Invasion of
Privacy. This book details the growing trend of electronic surveillance by government
and industry in the 1960s. Also recounted in detail is the monitoring of the mails.
Especially interesting are accounts of wiretapping by the Food and Drug
Administration, which used electronic surveillance to gain evidence against those who
were selling unapproved food additives, and the Internal Revenue Service, which used
wiretaps in order to find unreported income. Readers will also be amused by
photographs showing a variety of spy listening devices, such as a bugged olive, a gun
that fires a dart containing a microphone, and a "shocker" that can be mounted on the
back of "a young woman" in order to aid gambling.
Miller, Arthur R. The Assault on Privacy: Computers, Data Banks, and Dossiers. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1970.
An excellent history of the politics and events leading up to the adoption of the Fair
Credit Reporting Act.
Murphy, Paul L. World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States.
New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1979.
Murphy's thesis is that prior to World War I, violations of civil liberties were
reasonably widespread and fairly tolerated. But there were so many civil liberties
violations during the war, Murphy argues, and they were targeted so broadly, that the
resulting backlash ignited the American civil liberties movement.
Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1949.
Fifty years after its publication, many people forget that George Orwell's classic
dystopian vision was less about privacy than about totalitarianism. Big Brother's
control on his society was maintained by controlling the past and striking fear into the
hearts of those in the present.
Packard, Vance. The Naked Society. New York: David McKay Co., 1964.
This is Packard's monumental work on privacy and surveillance in the 1960s. Packard
considers assaults on privacy at home, in the workplace, by government, and by
industry. He looks at the economic and political factors forcing the new era of
surveillance, and makes concrete recommendations for what should be done.
Phillips, John Aristotle, and David Michaelis. Mushroom: The Story of the A-bomb
Kid. New York: Morrow. 1978.
John Aristotle Phillips was a student who discovered that he could create detailed
plans for making an atomic bomb using only publicly available sources. He proved
that our "nuclear secrets" are far less secret than many people think.
Ramberg, Bennett. Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy: An
Unrecognized Military Peril. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
Ramberg shows that you don't even need to have nuclear secrets to create nuclear
fallout: all you need is a truck packed with explosives and a handy civilian nuclear
power plant.
Robin, Leonard. Money Troubles: Legal Strategies to Cope with Your Debts, 4th ed.
Berkeley: Nolo Press, 1996.
Discusses techniques for obtaining credit reports and dealing with incorrect
information in credit reporting databanks.
Rosenberg, Jerry M. The Death of Privacy. New York: Random House, 1969.
Rosenberg's book discusses the impact of electronic data processing on personal
privacy in the late 1960s. It is another book that argued for the passage of laws in the
United States to protect individuals from incorrect or inappropriate information being
stored in computer databanks.
Rothfeder, Jeffrey. Privacy for Sale: How Computerization has Made Everyone's
Private Life an Open Secret. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
In 1990, journalist Jeffrey Rothfeder obtained Vice President Dan Quayle's credit
report while working on a project at Business Week magazine. After leaving Business
Week, Rothfeder wrote Privacy For Sale, a survey of privacy issues with special
attention directed at record aggregating firms called "super bureaus." This volume is
notable, in part, for its in-depth profile of journalist Dan Rather's private life, a profile
that was created and published without Mr. Rather's consent.
Schwartz, Paul, and Joel Reidenberg. Data Protection Law: A Study of United States
Data Protection. Dayton: Michie, 1996.
An extensive review of data protection law and current industry practices.
Smith, H. Jeff. Managing Privacy: Information Technology and Corporate America.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.
Smith's thesis from the Harvard Business School examines how major U.S. corporations
handle personal information. It is the only summary of its kind.
Smith, Robert E., and Eric Siegel. War Stories: Accounts of Persons Victimized by
Invasions of Privacy. Available from Privacy Journal (P.O. Box 28577, Providence,
RI 02908; 401-274-7861), 1994.
Describes more than 500 cases of invasion of privacy, including abuses in credit
reports, medical information, "identity theft," electronic surveillance, Internet use,
government information, telephone solicitation, and more. Published by the editor of
the Privacy Journal.
Smith, Robert E., and Eric Siegel. War Stories II. Available from Privacy Journal
(P.O. Box 28577, Providence, RI 02908; 401-274-7861), 1997.
Provides additional cases from the Privacy Journal.
Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash. New York: Bantam, 1992.
Stephenson's novel, set in the early twenty-first century, features ubiquitous video
cameras, wearcams, bugged virtual environments, the massive democratization of
destructive technologies, and honest-to-goodness brain wiretapping and control. Snow
Crash prophesied many of the technologies discussed in Database Nation; this,
combined with a lively story, makes the novel both enjoyable and thought provoking.
Turkington, Richard C., George B. Trubow, Anita L. Allen. Privacy: Cases and
Materials. Houston: The John Marshall Publishing Co., 1992.
A strong textbook for teaching the history and current status of privacy law, both on
and off the Internet.
Twain, Mark. Pudd'nhead Wilson: A Tale. London: Chatto & Windus, 1894.
Twain's novel introduced many Americans to the idea that fingerprints could be used
for both identification and criminal investigations.
Wayner, Peter. Disappearing Cryptography. Boston: AP Professional, 1996.
Wayner's book explores the science of stenography—techniques for hiding encrypted
information in other pieces of data so that the encrypted information cannot be
discovered. Stenography has direct implications for watermarking and law
enforcement.
Westin, Alan F., Project Director, Michael A. Baker, Assistant Project Director.
Databanks in a Free Society: Computers, Record-Keeping and Privacy. New York:
Quadrangle Books, 1972.
This book reports the findings of a National Research Council study on the growth of
electronic databanks and their impact on American society. The book contains indepth
reports on computers operated in 1970–71 by the federal government, states,
commercial organizations, colleges, and other nonprofit organizations. Readers will
find especially interesting the reports on the computers operated by the Social Security
Administration, the FBI's National Crime Information Center; Bank of America;
TRW's Credit Data Corporation; the R. L. Polk and Company mailing list operation;
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and the Church of the Latter-Day Saints.
The book also summarizes the results of site visits to 55 advanced systems located
around the United States. It predicts future directions in computer technology, and
then considers the impact of computers on public policy. Because of the staying power
of legacy systems, many of the organizations profiled by Westin et. al. are still in use
today, making this book still timely 28 years after its publication.
Wilson, Thomas F., and Paul L. Woodard. Automated Fingerprint Identification
Systems: Technology and Policy Issues. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, April 1987. Pub. No. NCJ-104342.
This report, summarizing the dramatic success of AFIS systems, marks the beginning
of the widespread adoption and acceptance of AFIS technology in the United States.
Web Sites
The following web sites provide additional online information on the topics discussed
in this book.
Internet Chess Club.
Searchable archives of the MED-PRIVACY Internet mailing list on medical privacy
issues.
Home page of Victims of Credit Reporting. A web site dedicated to people who have
been victimized by credit reporting agencies. It has information on the Fair Credit
Reporting Act, techniques for correcting credit reports, and some preliminary information
on ways to fight back
Home page of American Adoption Congress.
Home page of American Type Culture Center
Home page of Ball Aerospace, makers of the Quickbird Imaging satellite. See
http://www.ball.com/aerospace/qbird.html for information about Quickbird.
Home page of Earth Observation Data Services. Maintains an online warehouse with
more than 21,000 satellite images available for download.
Home page of the Loebner Prize, which will be awarded to the first computer whose
responses are indistinguisable from a human's.
Home page of National Coalition for Patient's Rights, a nonprofit organization dedicated
to the premise that patients have the right to privacy when they consult a healthcare
professional. NCPR believes that neither employers, nor insurers, nor government
agencies, nor police should be allowed to supersede that basic right.
Home page of National Council for Adoption. The NCFA is a nonprofit organization
that provides information on both domestic and international adoption, encourages proadoption
legislation, and provides referrals to member agencies.
Home page of Nuclear Control Institute. Founded in 1981, the institute is a research and
advocacy center for preventing nuclear proliferation. Nonprofit and nonpartisan, the
institute plays a watchdog rule in a complex and dangerous field.
Home page of Nova Graphics. Sells "Earth at Night" and other Landsat posters (800-
727-NOVA)
Home page of Space Imaging Corporation.
Home page of TerraServer, which provides single-point shopping for satellite
photographs from the U.S. Landsat and the Soviet-era SPIN-2 satellite. Images can be
purchased and downloaded over the Web; Large Kodak prints can be ordered as well.
TerraServer's intuitive user interface allows you to specify your target location by address
or map coordinates, or by clicking it on the globe.
Home page of U.S. Direct Marketing Association.
Home page of WorldSat Internation, Inc., makers of the world's most computationally
intensive satellite posters (800-387-8177)
Contents
1. Privacy Under Attack 1
2. Database Nation 13
3. Absolute Identification 37
4. What did you do Today? 69
5. The View from above 93
6. To know your Future 125
7. Buy Now! 155
8. Who Owns your Information? 177
9. Kooks and Terrorists 209
10. Excuse Me, but are you Human? 241
11. Privacy Now! 257
Annotated Bibliography and Notes 273
Acknowledgments 293
Index 299
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ISBN
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Copyright
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