

Obama Administration Unveils Blueprint for a “Privacy Bill of Rights” - clebio
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/02/23/we-can-t-wait-obama-administration-unveils-blueprint-privacy-bill-rights
WASHINGTON, DC – The Obama Administration today unveiled a “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights” as part of a comprehensive blueprint to improve consumers’ privacy protections and ensure that the Internet remains an engine for innovation and economic growth. ... In addition, advertising networks announced that leading Internet companies and online advertising networks are committing to act on Do Not Track technology in most major web browsers to make it easier for users to control online tracking.
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krschultz
Unfortunately 'privacy' is an overloaded word in US politics.

A "Right to Privacy" is never called out in the Constitution, but between the
due process clause and the ban on unreasonable search and seizure, the supreme
court ruled that it is implicitly there.

Then the supreme court ruled that partly because of this Right to Privacy,
abortion should be allowed. (i.e. Roe v Wade). I definitely DO NOT want to
have Roe v Wade discussion on HN, but it is important to recognize that
baggage is associated with Privacy.

We really will never get all the states on board because of that.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
One of the very difficult problems with anything political in the states is
that all the terminology has been overloaded to the point where it's not
really clear what people are saying.

What's a war? Does it involve a draft and killing large numbers of people
somewhere? Nope. We have a war on poverty, a war on drugs, a war on obesity,
and so on. How about "rights" what's a right? Is it some piece of property
that the government is forbidden to take from you? Nope. We have an airline
passenger's bill of rights, a right to contraceptives, now a privacy bill of
rights, and so on.

I think people mean well when they re-use words like this. It certainly sounds
more serious to say that such-and-such is a right. The problem is that when
talking about the structure of the system overall, as opposed to just the
change you are suggesting, you need to know what things are and where things
fit together. I think this structural knowledge of the theory behind the way
things are supposed to fit together -- the design pattern of the country if
you like -- has been lost over time. now politicians just ask "what do people
want", then spin it up to sound as dramatic as possible, then throw hundreds
or thousands of pages of legislation at it until it looks as if it's been
"fixed". If this were coding, it'd be obvious that they were just thrashing
around, trying to hack their way through tons of cruft to try to get something
to compile.

The lack of clean structure and terms makes talking about and resolving
everything a lot more difficult than it should be.

~~~
krschultz
Exactly. In my opinion if it's not a constitutional amendment it's not worth
anything. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies barely follow the
constitution at times, forget following simple bills.

~~~
TimSchumann
I feel like we don't even try to follow the Constitution as the Law of the
Land in the United States anymore.

Look at Drug Prohibition for instance (at a federal level). When they tried to
do it with Alcohol in the 20's at least they had respect for the rule of law
to properly make it a constitutional amendment.

Now we have federal raids in California for marijuana, where the people being
raided haven't broken any local state laws.

Depressing.

'But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is
certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or
has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.'
-Lysander Spooner

------
RexRollman
I find this kind of funny, as both parties seem to have no problem with the US
becoming an all seeing, all knowing, incredibly invasive surveillance state.

~~~
ams6110
Everything the White House does between now and November will be hand-waving
to distract attention from the economy.

~~~
antoko
If the economy continues the way it has for the last 4 months I think the
exact opposite will be true. Recent economic news has been good and Obama's
approval rating has hit 50% in some polls - if you take out the blip for the
bin Laden hit his numbers haven't been that good since his honeymoon period.

[http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obam...](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html)

~~~
functionoid
It is almost laughable how soon people forget where they have been, how much
national debt has has been piled to bring this meager growth in economy. The
main reason the employers are hiring is the extension of temporary tax cuts.
It is only a short term boost to the market for the time being.

~~~
antoko
Those laughable people have a different name this year... voters.

I won't address the rest of your post. HN political discussions usually make
me cringe and I don't have a dog in this fight anyway.

------
Coswyn
Obama signs the USA PATRIOT Act and the 2012 NDAA, only to propose a Privacy
Bill of Rights? The goodwill gesture of a hypocritical administration is vain
and illusory. To trust it is to be fooled.

As Bush tried to say, and in retrospect became the first instance: "Fool me
once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." Let us not shame ourselves in
this instance.

~~~
camiller
Ah, but his proposed privacy bill of rights is all aimed at corporate data
collection, not government data collection. He WANTS the government to have a
monopoly in this area.

------
redthrowaway
This protects your data from _companies_ , not the government. Obama obviously
feels it's perfectly acceptable to issue NSLs by the tens of thousands and
demand Twitter hand over user data w/o a warrant. Somehow I doubt he feels
individual privacy extends to privacy from the government's prying eyes and
grasping claws.

------
jdp23
Here's the specific rights they call out:

− Individual Control: Consumers have a right to exercise control over what
personal data companies collect from them and how they use it.

− Transparency: Consumers have a right to easily understandable and accessible
information about privacy and security practices.

− Respect for Context: Consumers have a right to expect that companies will
collect, use, and disclose personal data in ways that are consistent with the
context in which consumers provide the data.

− Security: Consumers have a right to secure and responsible handling of
personal data.

− Access and Accuracy: Consumers have a right to access and correct personal
data in usable formats, in a manner that is appropriate to the sensitivity of
the data and the risk of adverse consequences to consumers if the data is
inaccurate.

− Focused Collection: Consumers have a right to reasonable limits on the
personal data that companies collect and retain.

− Accountability: Consumers have a right to have personal data handled by
companies with appropriate measures in place to assure they adhere to the
Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights.

As the document points out, it's based on the Fair Information Practices.

~~~
thematt
You say "that _companies_ will...", but the whitehouse.gov version says "that
_organizations_ will...". I think that's quite a significant semantic
difference. Is the government subjecting themselves to these same rules?

~~~
anigbrowl
_Is the government subjecting themselves to these same rules?_

I don't think you can talk about government as a single entity. but this
proposal inclines in that direction. One feature of this administration has
been a stronger commitment to openness via Freedom Of Information Act
requests. Although this commitment propagates through different agencies at
different speeds (depending on budgets, bureaucratic inertia, and political
factors), there is certainly an administrative mandate for greater
responsiveness to public inquiry. I think this indicated an increased
awareness of privacy issues since the identification/specification of
information is a necessary first step to challenging the retention or
application of such information.

I'm not sure that the complex issues surrounding privacy can be addressed with
a single bill or even the attractive simplicity of a simple-seeming
constitutional amendment. There's a constant tension between rules on the
gathering of information vs. rules on its use. Preventing information from
being gathered or retained obviously limits the scope for abuse, but also has
a distinct opportunity cost - consider the value of individuals' health
information in performing epidemiological research, for example. Some argue
that since humans are morally fallible and abuses are inevitable, the risk
premium of such abuse must exceed the cost of foregone opportunities by
definition, pointing to incidences of organizational abuse such as genocide or
systematic discrimination. Others (including myself) prefer to look at the
risks/costs in probabilistic terms and consider institutionalized secrecy or
obscurity to have significant risks of its own.

~~~
luriel
> One feature of this administration has been a stronger commitment to
> openness via Freedom Of Information Act requests.

Not really:

[http://www.salon.com/2012/02/02/aclu_sues_obama_administrati...](http://www.salon.com/2012/02/02/aclu_sues_obama_administration_over_assassination_secrecy/)

~~~
anigbrowl
Yes really. I'm talking about the overall trend, and acknowledged its
unevenness. Contemporary national security activities have always been subject
to secrecy considerations in the short term.

------
RyanMcGreal
Given the past ten years, I have to wonder whether the government will subject
itself to the same rules respecting the privacy of its citizens from
government surveillance, monitoring and data collection.

------
kenrikm
Wait a second.. The 9th amendment to Constitution already states that "certain
rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the
people" It is not the governments role to "set aside" rights that _already
belong_ to the people.There was a very specific set of reasons why the
original Bill of Rights came to be and I could go into a long complicated post
about this however for the A.D.D and TLDR crowd I'll just shorten it to this.

You already have the rights, the government does not need to "bless them"

~~~
jasonwocky
These rights have nothing to do with the U.S. Bill of Rights. For one thing,
it concerns consumers' relationships with businesses, not citizens'
relationships with government.

~~~
kenrikm
I understand that, however it's not the Governments place to establish
"rights". Regulations Yes! it is in their power to regulate But "rights" are
something much more they are not established by the government only recognized
by it.

------
gmisra
This is hard to take seriously at face value after looking at the Obama for
America privacy policy <http://www.barackobama.com/privacy-policy>

If you go through the trouble of creating an account, you will find that the
claim: "You can view or modify information stored with your user account by
logging in to your account and accessing the Manage My Account page."

appears to only refer to address and messaging subscription settings - no
other information is available. They fail to meet the standards set for both
transparency and individual control - and that's even before addressing the
set of unlisted "third party vendors" (both suppliers and consumers).

------
chaostheory
"[Obama's] DOJ Urges Supreme Court to Halt Challenge to Warrantless
Eavesdropping"

[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/scotus-fisa-
amendme...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/scotus-fisa-amendments/)

Yup they really care about privacy.

~~~
ajross
Left hand, right hand. The executive branch is very big. That case is about
"security". This proposal is about consumer and business behavior. I'm not at
all surprised that there's a philosophical disconnect between them, are you?

~~~
chaostheory
It would be strange if the Attorney General and the President didn't speak to
each other very often. imo There is a difference between empty PR gestures and
real action. The 'bill of rights' excludes the government.

------
functionoid
Lots of these things will be coming out of white house this election year.
They will propose specific changes to woo parts of population.

This one is for those who are more technical oriented, couple of days ago
white house talked about reducing the corporate tax, till now they were all
about increasing it. But these are just things they will put forward which
according to them will be done if reelected. We all know when happens once
politicians get reelected.

~~~
kenrikm
The Second term is the one where things really start to go bad. Most of the
damage gets done because they don't have anything to loose so they push
through whatever they feel like even if it's bad for the country. It helps
however if one party does not control both the Whitehouse and the
Congress/Senate. it does not seem to matter what party is in power, when they
have full control really terrible laws tend to get passed.

------
blahedo
The six points remind me a lot of the points in the European data privacy
conventions, which date from the 80s. I wonder if the connection was
explicit/intentional?

------
chris123
That's rich! Especially after recently signing the National Defense
Authorization Act:
[https://www.google.com/search?&q=Obama+Signs+the+Nationa...](https://www.google.com/search?&q=Obama+Signs+the+National+Defense+Authorization+Act)

------
lurchpop
Funny how carefully so-called bill of rights mentions nothing about privacy
rights as they relate to government. The main reason I don't want companies
and "organizations" having too much personal data is it's being shared with
the government. Nothing here puts restrictions on DHS, CIA, NSA data mining.

I'm eagerly awaiting the Orwellian twist they'll put on this "privacy" bill
where we'll be required to submit iris scans and fingerprints in order to go
online.

------
DanielBMarkham
This does not look like a very well-defined or comprehensive list, but it is
good to see some kind of movement.

I support immediate and binding legislation to fix things in the states, but
overall, looking at the politics, I really think this is bad news. Here's why:

1) It's not something that's going to pass. It's not like the White House got
together with members of the opposing party and came out with a bipartisan
document that would survive the election cycle. There's no indication of
having the votes necessary, there's little or no coordination with members of
their own party on the hill, and there's no competing sets of legislation
where this would be a beginning negotiating position.

2) The fixes required, I believe, are going to have to be constitutional
amendments. Something like this would be a nice effort (if it had a chance of
passing), but the situation is so murky that we need real absolutes, a real
set of rights, not an addition to the current system.

I'm left with the somewhat sad conclusion that this only begins to firm up
opposition in the Republican party -- although they'd never admit it with Ron
Paul currently doing so well in their polls. This is a statement something
along the lines of "Hey! We get it! We're on this problem and we want to fix
it."

That's a great political statement to make. But I think in terms of actually
fixing the problem, it takes us backwards rather than forward. A simple
statement along the lines of "Something is really wrong with online privacy.
We look for partners in the opposition party to move this forward
immediately." could have done the same thing without as much counterproductive
posturing. I leave it to the reader to determine whether the goal here is
actually fixing the problem or staking out a political position for the
upcoming election.

I remind people, including Ron Paul supporters, that's it's very possible for
elements of a party to make all kinds of noise that folks want to hear --
while actually creating a long-term fight that will continue to draw donations
and support. There are many scenarios in politics where creating a good fight
is much more advantageous than fixing the problem. In my analysis, this is the
purpose of that document. I'm desperately hoping over the next couple of years
that the Republicans do not rise to the bait. The last thing I want to see is
the Republicans spinning libertarian values as some excuse for my every move
to be tracked.

~~~
jbooth
"The last thing I want to see is the Republicans spinning libertarian values
as some excuse for my every move to be tracked."

We all know that's what's gonna happen, though. Just like net neutrality. "The
government should stay out of the free market and not burden these job
creators with excessive regulation." How many lobbyists do privacy advocates
have on their payroll? Throw in the fact that privacy in the Griswold decision
paved the way for Roe v Wade, and no way Republicans support anything of the
kind. So Obama will just posture a little with it.

------
dedward
Consumers bill of rights? It should be people's right of privacy......we're
more than "consumers"

------
Coswyn
All you need to do is uphold the Constitution and this would not be necessary.

------
Silhouette
Direct link to the underlying document (PDF):

[http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/privacy-
final....](http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/privacy-final.pdf)

------
Helianthus
Until you have the right to purge the data--all of it--that companies collect
on you with or without your permission, this "Bill of Rights" is woefully
incomplete.

~~~
pudquick
Why do you say that? Last I checked, I don't have the right to expunge any/all
data a corporate entity has collected about me that I deal with in the brick &
mortar realm.

I can sue for it, but I can't just walk in and say: Where's your form for me
to have all my records shredded?

The only big difference here is that our vehicle for traveling through the
various sites of businesses in the electronic realm leaks data about us like a
sieve: I'm a Comcast customer, I live in state XYZ, I'm using a Mac, I've been
to another site from your .com and here's my cookie, etc.

Tor, UserAgent modifiers, strict cookie settings and many other tools can help
hide this information - but the average consumer doesn't know about them or
how to use them.

This attempt at a rights bill is purely to put some "common sense"-style
consumer expectations in place and give them standard tools/methods to learn
more about what a particular company is doing.

Where the real failure comes into play is that, unlike in the brick & mortar
world, it's quite easy to stroll down an electronic avenue and enter a shop
that's actually housed in China - where suddenly this bill becomes a moot
point.

~~~
xyzzyz
_Last I checked, I don't have the right to expunge any/all data a corporate
entity has collected about me that I deal with in the brick & mortar realm._

It's interesting, because, you see, here in Poland I do indeed have the right
to do it. I believe this is true in most EU countries as well.

~~~
kiloaper
Likewise in Ireland, under certain conditions[1]. Interestingly there are
ongoing proposals to unify all EU data laws to make business easier/less
expensive between EU countries and the "right to be forgotten" is one key
feature that is being championed.

[1]
[http://www.dataprotection.ie/ViewDoc.asp?fn=/documents/right...](http://www.dataprotection.ie/ViewDoc.asp?fn=/documents/rights/RightsPlainEnglish.htm&CatID=16&m=r)

------
gyardley
Woo, a solution to a problem that doesn't exist - the current state of privacy
enforcement in America works fine. Companies with something to lose
effectively self-police. Companies that are a little too cavalier with user
privacy get whacked with bad PR and swarmed by class-action trolls - a far
greater penalty than anything the FTC can dish out. The adversarial model is a
little messy, but it results in a sane equilibrium that can evolve over time.

While the document this press release is based on probably won't result in any
laws, if it does, it's only going to codify _current_ expectations around the
use of personal data, which will grow increasingly stale as society changes.
Over time, having these obsolete expectations as law will become a greater and
greater albatross for entrepreneurs and for the economy.

