I suppose this falls in the "It Can't Happen Here!" department. The "here" is the United States. "There" is Ireland, where the government has access to a wide range of personal financial information. Just for good purposes, you understand. Maybe as part of the Global War on Terror? Whatever. Good purposes:
The security of everyone's personal and financial details is in serious doubt after a civil servant mole leaked highly sensitive information to his criminal brother.The Irish Independent can reveal the brother used the key information, which is held by the Government, to burgle one man and attempt to extort money from three businessmen.
The mole worked in the Data Protection Section of the Department of Family and Social Affairs and broke the Official Secrets Act by passing on the details.
He later admitted to officials that it is common practice amongst civil servants to check up on the financial status of friends, family and acquaintances. (Irish Independent via Boingboing)
The brother burgled one of the people whose financial and other affairs were revealed to him. But the employee with access to the central computer system did more. A lot more. And it sounds like he did it habitually, casually and often and wasn't the only one. For example, he:
- Checked personal details of colleagues and that of former acquaintances;
- Told his bosses that it was "common practice" among department employees to be "checking people casually";
- Claimed he looked up classified information out of "nosiness" and "curiosity".
Oh, my. Americans, at least, can feel comfortable all that data being collected on us without our knowledge or consent, authorized by the Patriot Act, is just to make our world safer. It's all protected. It can't be misused. Ireland?
It can't happen here.
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It doesn happen here. A friend of mine who worked for the state police routinely looked up his friends' drivers licenses to see their photos. He used to joke that mine were hilarious because I look like a beefy skinhead, but usually wear goofy Hawaiian print shirts.
He said he saw nothing wrong with it, they all do it, and it's not "really" an invasion of privacy.
Fascinating question. Can we divide information into "public" and "private" information? Privacy is, well, private, but who defines "private"?
Facebook information is by the owner's choice, "public" information. Some information (e.g. medical but not notifiable) should be private. I would suggest a private corporation manage private information for a fee, by providing an encryptable public database and encryption tools.
Lots of information currently considered "private" should IMHO be public. Criminal records are an example of information that starts out public (can be obtained at the time of conviction by attending court), but for some weird reason becomes "private". Another example is electronic recordings (e.g. CCTV) made in a public place. Other information (e.g. financial) should always be private, and to my thinking, the government (via tax department) has no business ever requesting that information. (Taxes should be collected from land and the like, not individuals, e.g. see Henry George)
As a general rule, if it starts out as private information, there should be no compulsory requirement for disclosure to anybody whatsoever, if information results from activities in the public domain (courts, CCTV records etc) then it should not be "privatized".
But Revere, they broke the laws in doing so. So there is a law to protect us from this kind of invasion and it gives us legal recourse against the government. Good, let them go spooky with my records and let me find out about it. When I do I will just take my overly exuberant lawyer generated settlement along with the satisfaction that I did get one from the government because their safeguards were inadequate.
Both Johnson and Nixon used the IRS to collect information on political opponents and George Clooney was the latest victim. He was much more pragmatic about the people involved losing their jobs and/or being suspended. The courts have had this stuff for YEARS before the Patriot Act..... Whats so different now?
Hillary used the NSA to spy on their political opponents (Sandy Berger fame) and this past month she has been ramming it to Bush for wanting to to it to our international and domestic enemies. So whats the diff now?
I used to work for the Social Security Administration ( along time ago). Guess what what employees there did all the time? Look at friends and family's financial data. Same thing happens at the IRS, as I understand. It predates Bush and the Patriot Act, it's a generic problem in government agencies that have access to personal data.
I had Madeleine Murray O'Hare (of In God We Trust fame) and Karl Malden in my file section, and yeah I looked.
Yeah, social security asks for financial info before granting assistance. You might think that is reasonable, except how do you protect that info from curious employees?
The solution is radical. Pay negative income tax to everybody. Sure, the rich don't need it, but after all, they are paying the most tax, and it will actually end up they pay more.
You bet it happens everywhere. Anyone who has access to confidential information has the ability to check up on friends and family or worse. 99% of the time it's harmless, but there's always that 1%....
I remember last year there was an article in our local newspaper where such activity was discovered in the Coroner's office... That was a bit ooky, but again, harmless for the most part.