[Infowarrior] - A Privacy Shield Against the Campaigns

[Richard Forno]

A Privacy Shield Against the Campaigns

By Shaun Dakin
Saturday, September 13, 2008; A17


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202658_pf.html

While John McCain and Barack Obama have plenty to fight about, there  
is at least one thing that they agree on: Voters who interact with  
their campaigns have no privacy rights.

What does this mean?

It's simple: Voters do not have the right to opt out of unwanted  
campaign communications, either online or off-line. Voters don't have  
the right to decide who will contact them or how they will be  
contacted by the presidential campaigns.

This invasion of the voters' privacy is bipartisan. Republicans do it.  
Democrats do it. Heck, even Libertarians do it.

This week, I received an e-mail from the Obama campaign that had the  
subject line: "Your Neighbors." Intrigued, I opened the message and  
learned that the campaign was launching a sophisticated program called  
"Neighbor-to-Neighbor" that makes "it easier than ever to connect with  
potential supporters in your community by phone or door-to-door." It  
continues: "Neighbor-to-Neighbor gives you the option to make phone  
calls or knock on doors -- the choice is yours."

The choice may be yours, but what about your neighbors, who may not  
want you to bother them at their homes?

This new program is both tech-cool and privacy-rights-scary. When I  
clicked through to myBarackObama.com, I was able to create "walk  
lists" using a Google map showing me exactly where potential Obama  
supporters near me live. The Web site provided the names, addresses  
and phone numbers of these targeted neighbors and offered a prompt for  
printing out the list. The last step? Log back in and record the  
results of your "door-to-door" conversations with voters.

I don't know about you, but I do not want my neighbors knocking on my  
door asking me whom I'm going to vote for. I certainly do not want my  
name, address and phone number printed on a Google map for the world  
to see. And, without a doubt, I do not want anyone calling me at home  
during dinner.

This is an invasion of privacy, because these voters never explicitly  
gave their permission to have themselves targeted in a database that  
invites their neighbors to walk "door to door" to try to persuade them  
to vote for a particular candidate.

When I tried to opt out of this tool, I learned that while I could opt  
out of campaign e-mail spam, there was no way that I could quickly,  
securely and comprehensively opt out of voter communications that I do  
not want to receive.

John McCain's Web site is much the same: It provides no mechanism for  
voters to opt out of unwanted communications other than e-mail.

What can be done?

As a spokesperson for millions of voters inundated by political  
campaigns, I have testified this year before the Senate Rules  
Committee in support of the Robocall Privacy Act. Our members report  
receiving as many as 15 robocalls a day during election season.  
Mothers have their babies awakened from naps. Night-shift workers who  
sleep during the day can't get the rest they need. Seniors and others  
fear that a health emergency could occur while their phone is tied up.

While commercial organizations are required by law to respect the  
privacy rights of consumers, politicians at the federal level and in  
all but a few states have exempted themselves from these laws. More  
than 160 million phone numbers have been placed on the National Do Not  
Call Registry, which requires commercial organizations to stop calling  
consumers within 30 days of those consumers listing their numbers.  
Political campaigns will call many of those 160 million numbers with  
impunity this fall. Why should commercial companies be required by law  
to stop invading the privacy of potential customers while politicians  
are allowed to do whatever they wish to reach potential voters?

To answer this question, candidates usually cite the First Amendment  
-- the right to speak freely as part of the our nation's vital  
democratic process. That might be a legitimate criticism of an  
outright ban but not of a system in which voters are given the choice  
to opt out of unwelcome communications.

Thus, the real reason for their personal exemptions is obvious:  
Politicians write the laws, and politicians like regulation only when  
it applies to someone else.

The time has come for a Voter Privacy Bill of Rights built on a  
single, straightforward principle: Voters should have the right to opt  
out of all direct political communications that they do not want to  
receive. Period.

The writer is chief executive and founder of Citizens for Civil  
Discourse, a nonprofit group that has launched the National Political  
Do Not Contact Registry at StopPoliticalCalls.org.