Privacy Prez?

[Nomen Nescio]

The Privacy President?

By WILLIAM SAFIRE


WASHINGTON Ñ In an action that left medical data-swappers sputtering with rage and the well-heeled intrusion lobby moaning about its "operational nightmare," President Bush struck a blow last week for the privacy of medical patients' records.

Few expected Bush to make good on the belated rule changes his departing predecessor made that so offended health-care bureaucrats. But now doctors, hospitals and insurers are obliged to get patients' consent before passing around intimate personal information.

This is only the beginning. During his campaign, Bush promised not only to uphold the principle of advance consent from users of the Internet and from depositors in banks, but to go after identity thieves and "make it a criminal offense to sell a person's Social Security number without his or her express consent."

His spokesman made clear to Wall Street Journal reporters that despite pressures from marketers, bankers, H.M.O.'s and credit snoops, Bush had told his domestic policy advisers he would "tend to side with the privacy point of view." He doesn't go overboard Ñ he thinks parents, for example, should be able to see their children's records Ñ but he seems to grasp the essential principle.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Court of Appeals here smacked one of the largest commercial snoops upside its headers. Trans Union Corporation, which has electronic dossiers on three out of four Americans, claimed a First Amendment right to sell credit information in mortgage applications to "target marketers" without the targeted consumers' permission. The intruder was willing to provide only an "opt-out," placing the burden of defending privacy on the unsuspecting victim.

The court disagreed. It held that the government, through the Federal Trade Commission, could require companies to get an individual's permission before selling credit data on that person to salesmen looking for prospects with delicious vulnerabilities. The far-reaching court decision affirms the role of government in protecting the privacy of individuals.

But what about government itself poking unnecessarily into people's private lives? Sure enough, with the executive and judicial branches awakening to the public's growing resentment of data rape, sleepy solons of the legislative branch are rubbing their eyes and noticing the issue.

Senator Fred Thompson discovered that 64 government Web sites place "cookies" in the computers of site visitors, enabling the feds to track the viewing habits of citizens long after they have left the government site. The irate Tennessean promised hearings because "the federal government should be setting the standard for privacy protection in the Information Age."

Rather than setting up talkathon commissions, Congress should be setting down laws, because banks, hospitals, colleges and dot-com enterprises have for years been paying lip service to privacy standards Ñ posting soothing "privacy policies" that are warrants for sustained snooping Ñ while making an open book of every person's health, personal habits and bank account.

One oughta-be-a-law applies to a problem that touches a nerve in tens of millions of Americans: the abuse of Social Security numbers as identifiers, contrary to the specific intent of the system. Ostensibly used for identity protection, Social Security number abuse has led to increased stalking and even murder.

And identity theft. Next on President Bush's privacy list is this spreading crime that ruins lives, not just credit ratings. In the Senate, Richard Shelby has been taking the lead on this, the D'Artagnan working with "the three privateers," Dianne Feinstein, Jon Kyl and Judd Gregg.

Bush's signals have given heart to Clay Shaw in the House. He says, "We'll be dropping a new bill to protect Social Security numbers in the next couple of weeks, hold hearings before Memorial Day and look for Senate partners."

Pitfall ahead: We'll see if Bush's appointee to head the Federal Trade Commission is as privacy-conscious as the departing chairman, Robert Pitofsky.

But the tide she is a-turning. We have a Congress that is getting the word from constituents; a judiciary that remembers Justice Brandeis and his "right to be let alone"; a press beginning to assign privacy as a beat; and a man in the White House who may not be averse to being thought of as the privacy president.