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April 30, 1996 By Jim Warren
In late February, a bill was introduced in the California state Legislature that would add the following prohibition to the state's civil code:
"No person or corporation may use or distribute for profit any personal information concerning a person without that person's written consent. Such information includes, but is not limited to, an individual's credit history, finances, medical history, purchases and travel patterns."
This kind of privacy protection legislation certainly isn't unique to the Golden State; similar bills are often proposed around the nation -- and around the world. It sounds wonderful, doesn't it -- at least, at the most naive, completely unthinking level.
RAMIFICATIONS
Now let's consider its ramifications.
For starters, it certainly could not withstand a First Amendment test of its prohibition on (for-profit) speech and press. As stated, it would prohibit all for-profit newspapers, magazines and broadcasters from disclosing any information about anyone without first obtaining their written consent. No more unkind disclosures about O. J. Simpson; no more information about political aides being connected to the KKK or militia; no more 60 Minutes expos
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The law ought be simple as possible. Else, unintended consequences are introduced exponential to the complexity of the legalese. "All those engaged in electronic database compilation of information, the primary purpose of which is to implicitly assess attributes of economic virtue or lack thereof, or habitual conduct, desirable or not, which is linked to personally identifying information; and such information is not made available either in mass-media content or for but a token fee, or is not of general public interest; shall by US Postal First Class Mail notify each individual of which the entity maintains a record, and offer a simple, cost-free op-out, which requires no more than 10 minutes investment of time for the individual. Such notice shall be furnished at least once each calendar year. The op-out information shall be propogated to all entities that maintain such databases, and op-outs to one shall be apply for all. Government is exempted but shall not divulge records to private enterprises. Foreign corporations shall comply under threat of being banned from doing commerce with in the USA. Under no circumstances shall records change location in response to an opt-out. Opt-outs shall result in total and complete destruction of all pertinent data.