At 09:45 PM 8/11/95 -0500, Anonymous wrote:
European Commission Adopts Privacy Directive
Brussels, Aug. 11, -- The European Commission is now well on its way towards affording a high level of protection to personal data held on computer systems, following the formal adoption of a Directive on the protection of personal data, Newsbytes has learned.
This is an even greater threat to privacy and rights than it appears. In addition to the fact that enforcing such a law in a world where everyone has computers would require massive government intrusion, one must also consider the objective, the intent of such a law. The intent of course is to limit what we are permitted to know of each other. In a world where contracts are largely enforced by reputations, (for example your visa card), governments can suppress freedom of contract by suppressing what information is available. For example bankruptcy laws that violate freedom of contract are in part enforced by controlling what information credit bureaus are permitted to keep. Indeed such restrictions are the major goal of existing restraints on credit bureaus. So not only does this law require extensive violation of freedom and privacy, the intent is also violation of peoples rights. Both ends and the necessary means are, as usual, similar. In the long run I do not think such laws can be effective unless governments use the same means to suppress privately computer mediated communication as the Chinese Empire used to suppress private paper mediated communication. (The Chinese not only made paper a state monopoly, but they also castrated anyone with knowledge of paper making so that the knowledge would not be passed from father to son.) This very vigorous enforcement did not hold back the tide for ever, but it held it back for a long time. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd@echeque.com