-Caveat Lector- ------- Start of forwarded message ------- From: Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: FC: Response to Dow Jones's Know Your Customer, USA Patriot database Date: 9/30/02 12:35:58 AM
Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/p-04033.html --- From: "Thomas Leavitt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: FC: Dow Jones releases Know Your Customer, USA Patriot database Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 11:44:02 -0700 Declan, I am profoundly astonished. Is turning one's reporters into private investigators common practice among the journalism industry? Does Dow Jones not realize how profoundly dangerous this is to the journalistic integrity of these enterprises, and to the physical well being of its reporters? As a reader of World Press Review, I'm constantly reminded that journalists world wide face danger every day from corrupt bureaucrats, rogue businessmen and criminal figures, and politicians angry that their machinations and manipulations of the public are being exposed and challenged. One of the constant themes of these attackers is that journalists are a tool of foreign powers, that they are spies on behalf of international powers... this database is making that literally true (in a sense). As a journalist, are you comfortable with the idea that your work would be compiled in such a fashion? That every time you name a figure, or place them in context, it is going to be picked up by your employer (or a third party) and put into a database, and that some individual other than yourself, the sum total of whose knowledge comes from your article and god only knows what else, is going to be making factual and speculative connections so that they can mark the place of those you interview in the political/social landscape? Perhaps most of the people you interview (or attempt to) are going to be ignorant of Factiva... but somehow, I doubt it. Wouldn't you be worried, as a journalist, that your sources are going to be ever more careful and selective about when they talk to you, and what they say, on and off the record? And which journalists are going to pay most heavily? Is the world going to even notice when some corrupt bureaucrat order the security service to break down the door of a local newspaper and arrest the editor (or just shoot him where he sits) because some bank refused to do business with him, and the only news coverage of note on that bureaucrat has come from the local press? What effect is this going to have on the ability of the local press to scoop international media? I know that if I were that bureaucrat, my suspicion of the press would be redoubled, especially of those members associated with Dow Jones and Reuters, after hearing of this. Further, even were I an honest bureaucrat or politician, I would be concerned... there is a profound potential for abuse. I can see a newly triumphant dictator making use of this to track down and eliminate all associates of the former regime or his political opponents, or a network of guerillas or terrorists using it to identify targets for assassination or kidnapping? If I were the FARC or Al-Qaida, for example, this might be a useful means for double checking internal intelligence on potential targets of opportunity - and I'm certain that in these vast bureaucracies, there are a few FARC or Al-Qaida sympathizers. That a database of this sort exists is perhaps inevitable, and probably beyond the scope of any imaginable regulation, both in a practical and ethical sense, but that such a database would be compiled and distributed by a media/news organization is not, and is profoundly disturbing. Regards, Thomas Leavitt ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? 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