From: Mark Rogaski <wendigo@ne-wendigo.jabberwock.org>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 13:50:05 +0800
To: tcmay@got.net (Tim May)
Subject: Re: Personal webpages can get you fired [CNN]
In-Reply-To: <v03102801b0e479088e30@[207.167.93.63]>
Message-ID: <199801160534.AAA25032@deathstar.jabberwock.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



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An entity claiming to be Tim May wrote:
: 
: And as with the AOL case of Timothy McVeigh (no, not _that_ one) being
: kicked out of the Navy for labelling himself as "gay" and as a "boy hunter"
: on one of his AOL profiles, there are already calls for new privacy laws.
: 
: Which misses the point. By illegalizing the keeping or disclosing of
: lawfully obtained information, greater harm is done.
: 
: I heard Nadine Strossen of the ACLU arguing today that more laws are needed
: to "prevent" these "abuses." In fact, more _technology_ is what's needed.
: The technology of Web proxies, remailers, nyms, and such.
: 

This issue was covered in _The Right to Privacy_ by Ellen Alderman and
Carolyn Kennedy.  The book was misplaced during my recent move, and I didn't
get very far through it.  I do remember that the current legal standard for
invasion of privacy depended upon whether the information was gathered from
a public medium.  A psychiatric evaluation or Telco records would not be
considered a public forum, so could not be used by an employer (unless the
evaluation was given by the employer, I guess).  A web page, on the other hand
is about as public as you can get.

I would agree that with the right technologies (proxies, remailers, etc) there
would be a de facto protection of privacy, and (insert the not-even-close-to-
a-lawyer disclaimer here) that there should be some legal basis that since
the effort was made to hide the True Name, the content could not be used, if
there were a compromise.  Looks like a win-win.

It still doesn't deal with morons who *provide* their employers with the 
ammo to terminate employment.  You can make a system foolproof, but you can't
make it damnfoolproof.

Mark

- -- 
[] Mark Rogaski                   "That which does not kill me
[] wendigo@pobox.com                 only makes me stranger."
[]
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