WILLIAM SAFIRE: People need help protecting their own privacy. \nWASHINGTON - States and businesses should be required to ask permission before selling your name to target marketers and other solicitors, e- or otherwise, says New York Times columnist William Safire.
"In practical terms," he says in his Thursday column, "the difference between opt in and opt out is the difference between a door locked with a bolt and a door left ajar. But in a divided appeals court -- under the strained rubric of commercial free speech -- the intrusive telecommunications giant U S West won. Its private customers and the public are the losers…
"(C)ontrol of information about an individual must rest with the person himself," he continues. "When the required permission is asked, he or she can sell it or trade it -- or tell the bank, the search engine and the Motor Vehicle Bureau to keep their mouths shut."
Safire was referring to a recent case in which the telecommunications company saved its right to buy and sell personal information on Constitutional grounds.
He says the issue of opt-in privacy is a political sleeper, with people more aware of passive privacy invasions and politicians "leery of the issue" because it cuts across ideological territory - "not just encrypted communication versus national security but personal liberty versus the free market."
Pending federal legislation has an opt-out clause similar to the driver's license information law which came in the wake of the Rebecca Schaefer case. That case involved the television actress's ultimate murderer getting her address by getting her driver's license record. The clause puts the burden on the customer to tell the business not to pass their information along, for sale or otherwise.
Alabama Congressman Richard Shelby says opt-out is mostly weak but a start. But Safire says opt-in is all but necessary now.
