NSA, Carnivore, Others Win 'Anti-Awards'
By Robert MacMillan, Newsbytes
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A.,
07 Mar 2001, 8:35 PM CST
The National Security Agency, the FBI's Carnivore Internet surveillance
system, ChoicePoint and the city of Tampa today all received the dubious "Big
Brother" awards from Privacy International for their Internet missteps in the
eyes of online privacy advocates.
The National Security Agency took top "honors" for the "lifetime menace
award," despite Privacy International's David Banisar's assertion that in the
past five years "they've gotten happy and friendly." He noted that this
latest trend of NSA user-friendliness has amounted to a general attempt not
to stop invading citizen's privacy, but to focus attention away from it.
The once-known-as-Carnivore Internet snooping project run by the FBI won the
award for "most heinous project," according to Banisar, for, as he said,
"Bringing Echelon to the ISP level."
The city of Tampa, Fla., meanwhile, took the honors for "worst government
official/agency" for the by now notorious Super Bowl Sunday surveillance
project in which video cameras taped the faces of fans, and then matched them
up against a criminal recognition program.
ChoicePoint, a company that sold consumer data in Transportation Department
records, and also supplied Texas-based felon lists to the state of Florida so
it could invalidate certain potential voters then living in that state during
the 2001 presidential election, took the prize for "greatest corporate
invader."
Other contenders for the lifetime menace award included IBM for, among other
things, its continuing lobbying push on Capitol Hill against privacy laws,
and the Direct Marketing Association for "making sure junk mail is officially
delivered," Banisar said.
Nortel Networks and VeriSign's Network Solutions were runners-up for
"greatest corporate invader," with Network Solutions receiving a special
raspberry for selling its WHOIS database to direct marketers.
The Justice Department and three Pennsylvania school districts - Tussey
Mountain, Penn Cambria and Lower Merion - took honors for the Cybercrime.gov
project and a local school district initiative to link a biometrics program
for individual students to their school lunch programs.
The Clinton administration's medical privacy regulations, under the
Department of Health & Human Services, took flak from Privacy International
for its pretense of protecting personal patient data, but in reality, PI
said, for allowing the selling of that data on a widespread basis.
