(00:00:24) Good morning, and (00:00:25) welcome to midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary eichten. Glad you could join us somebody or more accurately many many somebody's have gathered lots of information about you unless you've been living in a cave your whole life. You've been leaving a trail of information about yourself that someone has been dutifully collecting today on midday as part of Minnesota Public Radio special series on privacy the surveillance Society. We're going to try to find out more about what those somebodies might know about you who those somebody's actually are and how they collect all this information joining us today from Washington is Ari Schwartz who is policy analyst for the center for democracy and technology in organization, which has been tracking privacy issues and which today is launching a new website called operation opt out to help consumers remove their names from the ubiquitous lists that are being compiled by marketers the government and those Mother somebody's also whether this is Don Ray a Los angeles-based author and independent journalist who spends his time digging up information about people and who has written several books and articles and how people can protect themselves from the somebody's out there Gathering personal information. As always we invite you to join our conversation. We're talking this our about privacy who's gathering information about us, where do they find it? And what can they find out about us? Give us a call here. If you'd like to join our conversation. Our Twin City area number is 6512276 thousand 6512276 thousand if you're calling from outside the Twin Cities, you can reach us toll-free and that number is 1-800-218-4243 or 1-800 to for to to 828 gentlemen. Good morning. Thank you for joining us morning Ari Schwartz. Let me start with you who is gathering all these bits of information about us. Is it just the marketers? Is there some kind of Government cabal at work here what's (00:02:25) going on? I think it's a little it's a little too simplistic to say that there's some sort of government cabal going on. But certainly there are large groups of marketing organizations out there that they're these new companies called Data miners or profilers that collect this kind of information about individuals and keep it in the centralized location sell that information and then we have all of the financial institutions as well that a lot with the new Financial modernization bill, which is just signed into law last week can now, you know put together all sorts of information with the new company as these new companies merge insurance companies and banks credit card companies etcetera can now tie all this information together in ways that was never before possible. So (00:03:15) theoretically like the new financial institutions if you had a bank and insurance company put together they could take Look at your what your medical situation was and decide whether you could they give you a mortgage on that basis. (00:03:31) That's that's possibility for the future. Yes, but then again, we also have the new people there are these companies the data mining companies that can sell information about your online surfing habits. And as that's tied to offline information. And in fact some of these online tracking companies, I have bought some of the offline companies. So as this as again, you know what we're talking about more and more aggregation and more and more tracking and then there are also our government some government plans to do a little bit more tracking as well to try and prevent terrorism and some of other major concerns, which we feel also could lead to Greater surveillance government surveillance down the road, especially as all this information gets (00:04:15) aggregated now Don Ray, I think many people when they talk or think about this subject connected directly. Two computers the online age the internet and the rest but looking over some of your material. It seems pretty clear that people have been leaving a fairly detailed lengthy Trail, even if they've never gotten close to a computer. I mean if they apply for a rabies shot for their dog or register to vote if they've had a baby all of these things create a paper trail do they (00:04:46) not it's true and they always have and that's the reality to it that the government has been keeping records for a long time and the public has had the right to inspect those records and make sure that my dog got a rabies shot and yours didn't or vice versa. I think what Ari says is corrected. It's really the technology that's causing the problem. Now the fear the the paranoia you might say in that now these records that have been around forever are starting to be better better combined. The data mining is a good example of that you've gathered all together in one place and all of a sudden becomes very very valuable. (00:05:22) So computers have not Materially changed what's being collected? It's just made it a lot easier to collate and and cross-reference. Is that (00:05:31) right? Well, you know, I'm going to say that with regard to public records those things that that I believe every citizen needs to be able to inspect to make sure government is functioning properly those there are actually fewer of those available now than there were in the past and they eventually went on to computers and but it's the computerization that that makes it easier to get to in some cases. I think Ari will agree with me that the technology has allowed them to say. Hey, let's look for information in places that that it wasn't there before. Let's scan your your buying habits your viewing habits as you walk through a grocery store at one chain in Los Angeles. They have a computer on the cart that actually tracks where you walk. Well that's that's new information and it's how they use it that gets a little bit (00:06:12) scary. So it has changed the the problem qualitatively not just quantitatively if you will correct Ari Schwartz do most companies. Is sell or share the information they collect or can a consumer reasonably expect that when they're doing business with company X that company X is the only company that will have access to and and in some way use the information to give them (00:06:42) generally companies do sell the information or use the information in at least internally in other ways than it was originally collected for now recently. There has become more of a practice of posting privacy policies onto websites list doesn't happen in the in the day-to-day real world. You don't get to examine what's going to happen to your information. But at least on the web now, there's a little bit more information people can find out what the company is going to do with it. And if they disobey that the FTC has made it very clear that company disobeys its policy that is fraud so you can to to some degree trustees privacy policies on Add sites at least on in terms of buying on the internet. Now. We've also been working on trying to make these easier to read make it so that the browser can read them automatically trying to automate this process to use technology to help individuals make these decisions on their own. But again, that's further down the line right now. You still have to read all the legal (00:07:45) text but there is some legal protections already available to protect people if they don't want their information (00:07:51) shared. Well only if the company posts a privacy policy the company does not post a prop policy they can do whatever they want. But that's a way of a trust mechanism there that you know, you can ask a company for their policy. They don't have a if they don't have a policy you can say that I'm not going to do business with you or if the policy says I'm we're going to do whatever we want with your information. You can make that decision, but there are not other stronger protections out there about what those policies can say, and that's what we in some other groups in Washington are working on right now to try and get some My protections put in (00:08:25) donray. How should we conceptualize this? Should we think the think about this as somebody sitting somewhere with a big file on us? (00:08:36) Well, you know, I'm one who says you should use some reason in here. There's certainly some benefits and advantages to allowing companies to have information or cookies in your computer, whatever we all tend to use it to our benefit. It's just that when we fear that someone's using it for information for purposes of we don't we don't like them to use it that we have problems with it. I tend to think that we need to take a reasonable view of this and say wait a minute the potential is out there my rule. My personal rule is don't give out information about myself unless I know where it's going and I'm pretty safe with that one figuring that that this touches every family in the nation. It means that the crooks have that many more people to go after and indeed those who are After should be worried about it. I think that that it's a paranoia that is is a little bit beyond what it should be. I think that with any other technology when we learn to drive cars, we learned about locks and we learned to roll up our windows and we learned to be careful where we parked them and where we put our keys. I think a lot of that it needs to be done with this information as well as giving the consumer the option of opting out which is the key but then that puts it on the consumer and to this day and this day of paranoia. I still watch people going into restaurants and dropping their business cards into a fishbowl thinking they'll get a free lunch that whole idea free lunch is really tempting to people explain. Well the (00:10:03) what's wrong with (00:10:04) that what's wrong with it is that it's the same thing whether you give the information away with the registration of your software or you give the information Away by simply going to a website that can track where you're going here. You walk into a restaurant you plop your card into into this bowl. If you think that they're just dying to give you a free lunch, that's Crazy, they want the names of the customers. They want to know who's coming there. If you use your credit card, they can easily match up your credit card information with your business card and be able to with your credit report to find personal information about you and Link it to your profession and have an idea of how much money you make then they know who to send the free coupons to where the pretty offers to (00:10:42) Ari Schwartz is with us a policy analyst for the center for democracy and Technology. Don Ray is with us. He's a Los angeles-based based author and independent journalist, and we're talking this our about what information is being gathered about people who's doing it and just how they go about it. If you'd like to join our conversation, give us a call here, six five one two, two seven six thousand 6512276 thousand outside the Twin Cities. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-321-8633 or 1-800 to for to to 828. I think many people were brought up with the belief that The one number they should protect under all circumstances is their social security number is that the Holy Grail of information (00:11:31) collectors? Well in some ways the social security number has become an imperfect identifier and it's some ways that's fortunate because we Americans do do not want a national ID number but in some ways that's unfortunate unfortunate because it's so easy to get people's Social Security numbers that that they're not really a good way of identifying who when it exact individual is (00:12:01) so it's not if somebody has your social security number you shouldn't freak out about that that a lot of people have it and probably it's not going to cause you any trouble. (00:12:10) Well, I mean, there's this question of letting it spread out how far you want to let it spread out but in some cases you have to turn it over if you're going to get if you're applying for credit, you don't give the person your Social Security. Remember, you're not going to get the credit. There's no other way to look up to look up individuals. You have the right not to do it, but they have the right not to give you credit because you haven't you haven't given your social security number and other circumstances you can refuse to give your social security number as as an identifier and nothing may happen to you because of it and it certainly is legal not to give out your social security (00:12:47) number Don Ray is there one piece of information that people be should be particularly protective of or is it the total Mosaic really of information that causes the trouble (00:13:01) well, unfortunately if we're talking about the people who are out to do you in so to speak they need very little information. We just need what we call a hook meaning a date of birth a good address a correct spelling of the name with the middle initial or the middle name a social security number sometimes a phone number any of those will be an on ramp to get you on this information. I weigh about people the personal superhighway and unfortunately, as Ari says the credit reports are are linked to the Social Security number. So once you find a good address or a good date of birth or good identifier then by going to commercial I'm sorry to publicly available which are Commercial Services these credit companies. They're literally allowed legally allowed to sell the non-financial information about you from your credit report. Which means that when somebody finds your address your date of birth your name, they'll then learn your social security number then by running the social security number through the credit bureaus, they'll be able to find out everywhere you've lived from as far back as 20 years ago and the names of anybody else that was using your your credit card or other your social security number on as a co-applicant for a loan or something like that. So it's it's so readily available to those who know how to do it and it has been this way by the way for many many years that I think Security number is the one crucial thing and I think another suggestion is to simply be less specific about your name. I'm Donald Philip Ray and Phillip has one L. Well if I put down Donald Philip rayon every place I put my name it's real specific. It's going to be easier to find me but if it would down Don Ray or filaret RDP Ray it slows it down and they think the the answer here is to find ways of slowing down making it less convenient for people to go after you (00:14:51) mmm. Let's get to some callers here. Don Ray is with us. He's from Los Angeles, he gathers information about people and also provides information to people as to how it is that they may avoid having information gathered about them. And what's actually being collected about people Ari Schwartz is with us. He's with the center for democracy and Technology. The center is just posting a new website today opening a new website called operation opt-out designed to help consumers remove their name. Miss from lists that are being compiled we're talking about privacy and what people can find out about you if you'd like to join our conversation. Again, 6512276 thousand 6512276 thousand in the Twin Cities outside the Twin Cities one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight first callers from Hibbing bill. Go ahead place. (00:15:44) Mike all I'd like to just tap on a couple of things that you haven't mentioned such as telephone records. Somebody keeps a record of that at the phone company of all the calls you've made. I'd like to mention to the viewers. There's there's a movie that's the rate of rate about what we're talking about is called Enemy of the State. It talks about the NSA which some people are familiar with and you mentioned government cabal NSA has been empowered by the technology to store more information surge capacity has is virtually Unlimited in and give it into a very small space, you know phone call every every phone call can be monitored with the storage capacity and the and the in fact if if you want to find out the number I'm calling from I'm calling on you to her number it you have our type of What we call a caller ID there that tells you where this number has come from so that that puts up a red flag. Somebody calls in on this issue and somebody wants to go through your records and look at who who has an interest in this issue and they may be checking off certain books from the library books that you took from the library go through there. There there in that is encoded into that total scan of who you are that social security number required to get college loans are cleared to get into into college. It's one of those information that is required. If you if you refuse to give this your loan may be denied your admittance. The college may be denied. There's your Selective Service registration. If you have a Social Security number, well, then you are are are beholden to The Selective Service to be registered. (00:17:40) Okay. Well, let's get some comments (00:17:41) here. I don't want thanks a lot. I'll hang up. Collar the collar brings up a very good point about about how these some of these features get built in that we start collecting more and more information. I mean the NSA and the FBI have been pushing for greater and greater surveillance to but but in the process of doing that they've also expanded the amount of information that's collected about individuals and they have plans to do even more collection. They've recently pushed the the FBI's recently pushed the FCC to track location of cell phone users. So all cell phone users will have will be able to be followed based on where they're making their calls from and where the phone is on from and conference calls. If you're on a conference call with someone that's a suspect you can be followed after the conference call. There's and NSA. There was a recent article in the Washington Post this weekend about nsa's Echelon system, which is Much more tracking about surfing habits about messages that are posted on the internet telephone calls Etc. So as this expands were more and more information is being collected. Some of it gets out into the private sector. Some of it is collected for one purpose and then used for another purpose within the government all things that Americans have have always been afraid of in terms of the Big Brother concerns, you know, I'm not so certain that people have always been afraid of it not to say there isn't reason to be concerned but indeed I've been driving around for 30 years with my license plate on my car and long before that. We used to have our registration right on the steering column. Meaning anyone can walk up and find out who we were we put our names on our mailboxes in are doormats and we had our phone numbers listed in both phone directories and City directories, and we didn't have a problem. So one has to question what has changed a few crimes that we in the media are guilty of over over blowing maybe maybe I'm wrong but It's really not in my opinion unless you're doing something wrong or you're incredibly wealthy and vulnerable. I don't think that the FBI or the NSA has the resources even with the computers to want to monitor my every move and since I don't do anything, I think they should care about I think it's a waste of their time let them Follow Me by the way. I want to point out bill made a good point about all these records that might be used. He mentioned libraries and it's real important to point out on behalf of the American Library Association that these folks are the most Vigilant folks you'll ever see in fighting the FBI and they've gone to court over this preventing any government agency from tracking anything. You read or books you check out or whatever unless you're late getting your book in which you violated the law and you pay a fine. They're going to fight to make sure nobody can do that. Once I want to put people's mind at ease about going to the library. (00:20:33) Well that brings up another point though. And that is that even if the government is not collecting some of this information isn't isn't it true that with a simple subpoena Collect information that other people have collected (00:20:47) that's absolutely right and that gets to the point that I was trying to make that you know, we have had the Fourth Amendment which protects our information in it within our homes, but now that so much more of this information is moving to the networked environment is being held by Third parties is not being held by us. The FBI doesn't need to come to us anymore to get our information. They can go to the Internet service provider. They can go to the banks and get this information that simply simply through a subpoena. So so there is there has been a significant shift but I would disagree with Don and say that you know, we did have that we have had the Fourth Amendment. We do have some privacy concerns that have been with this country since its since its founding. (00:21:30) Let's go back to the phones and he's on the line with a question. Go ahead Andy. (00:21:34) Hi, I have a both actually a question and a comment but the question is as far as this Internet access thing up. They actually able to track exactly what websites you visit and the comment is I used to work in a computer lab and that lab eyewitness many people wouldn't accidentally misspelled a website. For instance White House dot-org sends you to you know to White House website White House.com. Send you to well porn. And another another example is a search engine excite exe ite. Well, if you type in any X ite once again, you get to a porn site. So if you make these mistakes Suddenly It's on record that you visit these these sites. Is that is that something somebody can hold against you or they going to understand that you might have just made a mistake? Okay, you know it's not illegal to view those websites to go to whitehouse.gov. You're going to see the White House if you go to org or or to come or to one of the others edu, even if I think you're going to get a variety of humorous things and some porn stuff, you know, it's the person who downloads the information that the FBI will come after actually even upload is really more appropriate those who send for example photographs of children involved in sexual things the it's the people who post them to the internet or ship them who are the ones that are under investigation. And again, I don't think that the census is so common as you point out Andy so many people are are stumbling across this that I don't see the real potential for someone coming in and saying you're a pervert because your computer went to this site if you downloaded 20 minutes worth of information, maybe it's a different story. But even then I disagree with anybody who says it's okay for them to be watching (00:23:22) you. What about how does this tracking procedure? (00:23:26) well, there are many there are different ways of tracking there are the basic web logs which give a certain amount of information basically what kind of computer you're on what you're what you could tell what service provider you're coming from and a lot of cases what country you're coming from, but then there's there are also these profiling companies mostly the ad Banner networks that set that set tagged onto your computer and they're these tags are usually either what are called cookies, which is basically a number that that identifies you or a web bug which is a clear graphic that that's set on to your computer as well that you don't really realize that that you're being tracked in either case unless you have your cookie there's there's something on your browser with that you can set to alert you when cookies are being set but and these if these are being set by an ad Banner company that's on different to different Sites, they can track you across the sites. Whereas usually ask the site itself can only track you within the site and then the isps also sometimes to keep a record of where individuals go to although they Purge those records and every ISP does that differently? (00:24:41) So if you guys each of you had advertising on your side and I clicked on first of all to the Center for democracy and Technology. Theoretically if you had the advertising it could pick up the fact that I was looking at your side and then follow over as I went over to Don Ray site, and then they would put together a little booklet about (00:25:01) me. Yeah, if it's one of these, you know profiling ad Banner companies they do do that. Usually they don't tie it personally identifiable offline information. But now a lot of at least one of the bigger companies double-click has bought an offline marketing company and they can they can actually tie that to some of your offline habits as well. (00:25:24) So it wouldn't be just a question that Computer was looking at your at your website, but eventually they could find out it was (00:25:31) me. They can find out if you turned over information to one of the sites showing that it was you, you know, if you bought something on one of the sites they could certainly what they have the ability to do that right. Now. They say that they don't do that and you can opt out and that's one of the reasons we built this opt outside. Although we don't think that's the end answer. We think that but you can get off and you can get off this list right now and stop stop the information from being shared. (00:26:02) We're talking this our about information that's been collected and is being collected about people just how much information is being collected who's doing the collecting and how they go about collecting the bits of information that they do have our guests this our Ari Schwartz who is with the center for democracy and technology and Washington. Don Ray is with us. He's In Los Angeles. He's an author an independent journalist who spends his time gathering information and letting people know how it is that this information is gathered and what you might do about it. This is all part of our series all week long. We're going to be looking at the issue of privacy. And if you'd like to join our conversation this our give us a call six five one two, two seven six thousand 6512276 thousand if you're calling from outside the Twin Cities one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight will get to some more callers in a couple minutes. This winter Garrison Keillor and the cast from A Prairie Home Companion are back from New York for a run of six live broadcasts at the Fitzgerald theater in st. Paul MPR members order your tickets. Now before they're on sale to the general public next week call Ticketmaster at (00:27:12) 6126730404 (00:27:15) or stop by the Fitzgerald box office and get your member discount. It's six new (00:27:19) shows live in downtown st. Paul (00:27:21) this winter by the way and it but invitation to join us second hour of our program. Today. We're going to hear from Kenneth Starr former independent counsel who spent five years investigating what started off to be the Whitewater controversy, of course expanded that into the Lewinsky Affair and the rest law itself was allowed to expire the independent counsel law was allowed to expire last summer Kenneth Stars thinks that's a good idea. He said there were some fundamental problems with the law was set up but he also has some things to say about his own investigation. Of the president that you'll be interested to hear what he has to say and we will hear from Kenneth Starr over the noon hour today right now news headlines. Here's Mary Anne Sullivan realistic movies. Don't get seen by anybody. There are that I have well just a minute here. We're going to have to make a adjustment. I guess. Thanks Gary. Good morning. It's 11:30 for in the news this Monday morning. A prosecutor says he's satisfied with the 360 year sentence handed down by an Indiana judge today Orville in Majors was convicted of murdering six patients when he worked as a hospital nurse. The judge said the crimes were diabolical the stage is set for a major School prayer ruling from the Supreme Court. The justices are going to look at a school board policy from Texas that sought to give students a broad-ranging right to take part in student-led group prayers at football games Rhode Island judge has cleared the way for the issuing of death certificates for the victims of Egypt Air flight 990, even though few remains have been found so far rough Seas have delayed further search efforts at the crash scene today the trial of Michelle Swanson begins today in Scott County district court in Shakopee. Swanson is facing charges that she ate at her boyfriend Dale Jensen when he kidnapped and killed her three-year-old daughter Jessica swans. In 1995 Jensen pleaded guilty to manslaughter in September and was sentenced to four years in prison, Minnesota attorney general. Mike Hatch says he's disappointed with the Supreme Court's ruling against the state and its battle with the Minnesota Twins the Court ruled today without argument against the state's appeal to investigate whether the twins conspired with other baseball teams to boycott cities that don't provide taxpayer-financed stadiums. The state supreme court unanimously said neither the twins nor Major League Baseball could be forced to comply with the investigation the Minnesota football Gophers moved up three spots to number 17 in the AP Top 25 after defeating, Indiana 44 220, Minnesota travels to Iowa with a chance to go forward on the road in the Big Ten with a victory at Iowa. The Gophers will prepare for their first bowl game since 1986. And in the weather today partly sunny skies across Minnesota lower 40s in the north mid 60s in the south west 53 for the high in the Twin Cities. That's the latest from The Newsroom. I'm Mary Anne Sullivan. Thank you Marianne. Glad we could find you. Are 24 minutes before twelve, this is midday on Minnesota Public Radio. And we're talking this hour with Don Ray and Ari Schwartz about information that's being collected by information collectors information about you personal information who's doing the collecting what is being collected and what you might do to restrict what happens with that information get if you'd like to join our conversation. Give us a call here at 6512276 Thousand or one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight Jason go ahead place. (00:30:47) Hello, thank you for taking my call. I'll make this short because I'll probably cut out my call have new with east of the government does track people who download information from specific site. My question would be what about these people that download the information and send it out via emails to a number of individuals who had no interest in this site. I receive email periodically that I don't even know who the people are who sending them to me, but the information is obviously something I wouldn't be interested in. How would that be affected are those people tract as well then? (00:31:19) Gentlemen, (00:31:21) well this is done. I don't have the knowledge of the government standing by and watching every move everybody makes I know one of the stories I'm working on is is about an operation the FBI did about about pedophiles on the internet, which is a real real big problem. And the sad part of it is that if you looked at the policy of the FBI and the US attorney's office, this is a good example of how they track they were able to able to identify thousands of people who downloaded. Let's say kiddie porn or pictures of children that were inappropriate and of course, there's apparently no crime or it's not terribly enforceable about the downloading but it's the sending of it and of those that they sent the the controversy that went all the way to Congress is that the FBI was not enforcing it. The US attorney was not actually filing on anybody. They didn't have the desire to file where they might not win so they made a to upload rule. The then with the local police said hey, if you've identified a pervert a pedophile in our area, you should let us know the FBI refused to give the information even to the local authorities. So I don't see a great organization that sufficiently watching every citizen and what they're doing. I don't think there's a man power imagine sitting in the in the Rose Bowl and talking to your neighbor. Well, if someone could monitor every conversation the Rose Bowl, where would they have the people to man? All of the monitors is my question. (00:32:49) Let's go on to another caller here tissues on the line from Lutsen. Go ahead, please. You go (00:32:57) ahead. Good morning. The reason I'm calling I'm recently became I recently moved to Minnesota and I was surprised to discover that when I applied for my driver's license in Minnesota that the information I gave them could be used by marketers unless I checked a box on the reverse side of the driver's license application and I didn't know most people would be aware that you'd have to check the reverse side because there's nothing on the front that indicates that there's any information useful on the back (00:33:45) right Ari, is that fairly (00:33:47) common? Yeah, that's a very common practice. Actually that that first of all it's very very common that information from driver's license. From the driver's license database and there's a Supreme Court ruling on this. Although it's kind of more of a States right issue about whether the federal government can make a limit can limit their sale the information but that's also a part of our of our new opt-out website is we list all of the all of the different offices that you can write to to opt out from the sale of information. So you don't need to just do it when you're registering you can do it. You can do it at any time and people that don't want their information sold to marketers there the information that that's on their driving driver's license. They should think about doing that because that's really the only protection they have right (00:34:39) now. Is it too late have we already gone so far down this path that any efforts to block further disclosure as kind of futile? (00:34:48) Well, I don't think it's too late because many people move and that the information does change and And so people do still have the ability to make changes and you know, a lot of the marketers and other people will Purge their databases or after a period of time and that's also one of the problems here is some of them don't Purge the information a lot of it's incorrect and people have no way of actually correcting it so I don't think that it's that that people opting out now, it's too late. I think that it's really something useful that people can (00:35:24) do Don Ray should everybody have a shredder at home. (00:35:28) No, I don't believe so it all again. I know records very well for 30 years. I've been tracking people down for legitimate purposes and I have no angry people anyone who's angry at me for what I've done and the key is you can shred all of you want all you want. The question is can you go back and change it? Well, unfortunately you generated public record the day you were born in Most states that's public record and marriage records are public and property. The public and in Most states voter records are public and this is essential. So what the real question I want listeners to ask themselves is how do they want the government to function they want to have everything in secrecy and then the pendulum will fall to wear where the son of the mayor won't have to be paying property taxes or the son of the president will get to vote five times or whatever because we can't inspect the records. I think it's essential that the government records remain available to the general public a good question is should government agencies be able to sell in bulk the information about me to commercial Endeavors and marketing people and I have some serious problems with that it boils down to unfortunately, it's buyer beware and and the word opt is so important when you talk about opt-out is you've got to say Okay. I want the privilege of driving now. Where is this information going to go? Mr. DMV person or whatever. I want the privilege of voting. What can I do to limit it people need to be much more vigilant. Went about where the information is going. I want to point out something really interesting. And I think I think Ari will help me on this one Jason mentioned dialing in to a website and getting the wrong one by accident. I just tried to go where I thought operation opt-out would be and I went to www.outdoorcooking.com be a non-profit. And ironically this is a hoot the people who have I read I'm sorry that have opted out dot org is the Aristotle company and their the business of selling voter registration records across the country. So I was hoping maybe the are I could give me a better website. That's right. Well, if you go to see DT dot org wtvp.org, you'll see links to the opt-out website BC CD t-- Center for democracy and Technology. (00:37:41) Do these do these electronic records tracings cookies and all that do they ever disappear or are they always there in other words we hear a lot about email. Well it never really did. Appears at all do these other things disappear or (00:37:59) well it some of the cookies are expire after a period of time but the information on the backend the information of where you've served Etc is held as long as the database companies want to hold it for or the companies that are collecting this information one hold it for (00:38:14) so if somebody does something foolish at some point in their life, they are subject to having that called back and and held up to them pretty much forever. (00:38:29) Well, that's I mean, this is one of the problems that that's out there. I'm not sure that I think Don's done has explained very well the, you know, the certainly why public records need to be open and why and how law enforcement is has been looking into this information up to this point. So to show that you know, that that it makes sense to have these kind of Records out there. But then again, there are also are these newsgroup list Deja news collects everyone's postings anyone that posted to a newsgroup on the internet which can be looked up at any time. So something that someone wrote when they were 15 could come back to haunt them when they run for office at 35 and that's I mean that's just a fact of the way that the internet functions that that it is easy to Archive so that but we also have to become a society. that is willing to tolerate, you know things that that people set and understand that people made mistakes in the (00:39:34) past Larry or question, please Larry go ahead. (00:39:40) Okay. It's a three-part question. Number one is specifically who do you have to give your social security? Number two number two is specifically who do you not have to give it to in other words all companies that say I need it. And is it illegal for them to demand it? And thirdly is it ever illegal to give a false security social security number like an example would be me taking a community college course in woodworking or so and they want my social security number. Is there any illegality is in giving that to a company of that nature? You know, I just had my I lost my license social security card. So I had them send me a new one and I read the notice. It's now on all know new social security card on the part gives you throw away when you tear it off actually says to keep it and basically what it's a disclaimer by the federal government saying hey, um people may ask you for your social. Ready number and while it's not illegal for them to ask for it. It may not be required that you give it and they say that some state laws are some some local laws will require it and it's up to you. Basically the Social Security says to to ask them if it's required and and I will even add to that ask them to cite the law or the Court ruling that requires it and then you make your choice on that one. But Social Security indeed says and I believe they're pretty good about this that indeed nobody in Social Security is going to provide the information to to marketing people about your social security information. They've been pretty strict about that stuff. They have in fact, they had don't like the the burden that they've been given of having this kind of national identifiers in their in their shop. There is the federal law the Privacy Act of 1974 which limits the spread of the social which tries to limit the spread of the social security number specifically any new databases that do Is social security numbers within the federal government have to be very specific why they need the social security number and as Don said you can ask federal agencies to do that state same with state government state governments are allowed to ask for it by law. No private company is can force you to ask for it, but they can deny you services for not giving it to you to them and there is a third question. I have a friend who is very very dyslexic and he has such a problem whenever he goes to a social security number that he somehow swaps two numbers now gosh, I think it's all an innocent accident but he just wanders maybe if maybe they can't track him also (00:42:17) all of this seems like so much work. Why is it that there isn't a law that says nobody can use any of this information without you giving specific (00:42:28) approval. That that is something that we have worked on a couple on a number of fronts most most recently in the bank modernization bill. I think that it makes a lot of sense particularly in in the instance of Financial in financial institutions and with medical information except for in certain circumstances, when obviously at doctors do need the information directly, but it makes sense to put those kind of limits on certain kinds of information. I think it's gonna be interesting when somebody passes a law somewhere that says some people suggested this that sure use my information, but pay me each time you sell it. I want a commission. I think we're going to see people reversing and rushing to fill out warranty cards, (00:43:15) John your next go ahead, (00:43:16) please. Yeah, I have a friend who couldn't remember his Social Security number so he guessed and it was wrong and it was on his tax form and he complained to me about it because he couldn't get his refund. So I told him to go to the IRS and tell them what he did. So the funny thing about it is now he's got to Social Security numbers the real one and the only one because for some bureaucratic reason they cannot undo a social security number even if it's a fake Social Security number and I guess my question is. You think that the reason I don't believe that we will ever have a flat tax is because the IRS I believe is primarily an intelligence gathering organization. If it do you think that idea is a wrong idea. Gentlemen, well, I don't give them that much credit. I do a lot of training to law enforcement groups and government groups groups on public records. And I find that even the police when I'm giving them a basic course on public records, by the way. I endorse them using public records before they violate Fourth Amendment rights go to the public sector and get it. But what happens is that is of all the groups of people who you would think would be very proficient at this law enforcement is way down at the bottom of the list on their ability to use this kind of information on computers effectively. (00:44:53) Let's go to another caller here Dorothy quick question. (00:44:58) Hi a couple things I want to say one was as a matter of fact, Minnesota Public Radio sold, its membership information to the Democratic National Party not a commercial event Venture, but it did the violate our privacy and they said they won't do it anymore, but I'm wondering Frequently that is done by public radio stations across the country and my second question was one of your guests mentioned warranty cards and can you explain about that a little (00:45:30) bit? Okay. Let's check those in opposite order warranty cards. (00:45:34) Okay, if I may and I'm sure Ari has more knowledge of this than I do but basically a war you buy a vcr and you get this this card that comes with it and they try to give you the impression that that you must fill it in and you must send it in in order for your warrant to be warranty to be good. Which from all my knowledge. I'm sure that your warranty is good if you never fill it in but look at the questions, they asked I did an experiment recently about two years ago where I took a warranty card and I basically made up a name of someone who didn't exist and I made it look as if I had gotten married and I hyphenated this thing with my last name and and I let her fill this fake person. I let her fill in the information. She likes sewing Like tennis she wanted another career somewhere Etc and all these what do you like to do things? And I tracked the junk mail. She got for the next two years based on filling out that warranty card and it was incredible for every box you check on that thing you're going to these people are going to sell the information to the appropriate Industries or magazines or marketing people that can use it. It's astonishing so the mirror filling it in sends it in and in your on record with them, which could be good if there's ever a product failure or safety issue with the product, but when you fill in the other information, you're handing it to them on a silver platter the one box I like the most is your income start for a while for the heck of a check that you make more than a million dollars a year and watch the kind of meal you get then check you make under 5,000 a year in your mail box will be (00:47:04) empty find out how other people live (00:47:08) I don Downs exactly right with warranty cards that you all you need is the receipt you can throw away the warranty card if you don't want your information shared if you want to do the experiment Don years is called we call seeding and you could try to your at your own home by using different middle initials Etc. See what kind of different mail you get from filling out different kinds of cards if (00:47:30) you're interested and I should note that let's see Minnesota Public Radio does not share its membership list with any partisan political organization. We allow members to block their names from being exchanged with anybody on our website. We don't collect personally identifying information unless you choose to provide that information. Well, lots of things to talk about gentlemen. Thanks so much for joining us this hour appreciate it and (00:47:55) thank you encourage people to go to our website as well opt out there (00:47:58) less. Okay. Thanks so much Ari Schwartz policy analyst for the center for democracy and technology. And also with us Don Ray who is a Los angeles-based author and independent journalist web site can links can be found at Minnesota Public Radio. R dot o-- r-- g-- and then check surveillance Society. We've got programs all week long on this subject reminder that as you've heard over and over again more money and less time. We sure like to thank you for helping us prove that it works because of your generous contributions. We reached our goal for the fall membership Drive in record time. If you signed up on our easy pay plan, you'll will be sending you an enrollment form in the mail very soon because of your gift we can continue to make more great radio. We thank you very much for your for pledges last week.