At 6:05 PM -0700 5/31/97, Marc Rotenberg wrote:
What examples do you have where privacy is included in a contractual arrangement?
- a lender agrees to transfer the information provided only to specified parties, and not to the newspapers . . .
Good examples. Many are codified in statue, created by common law, industry practice, or professional obligation. Virtually none are tied to specific, negotiated contracts. One of the biggest problems with libertarian theories is that they are descriptively flawed as applied in the real world. In practice, perfect markets rarely exist, laws do protect rights, and there are a lot of efficiencies -- economic, technological, and otherwise -- in promoting the highest level of safeguards across similar activities, e.g. you get into a car, you expect that the brakes will work. You don't express a negotiated preference for how much you want your brakes to work. I don't mind the criticism if you think we're saying or doing something that really is bad for privacy, but a bunch of political rhetoric isn't worth much. And if you don't think we're not busting our butt to protect the rights of people to use strong crypto, you have no idea what's going on. Marc.