Transcript Document
Government Policies By Katie Watkins Government policies - controversial because : •provide us with so many benefits - privacy and protection •but can do so much harm A legal framework: • setting legal rights and responsibilities • necessary for a society to function effectively. • sets and enforces agreements and contracts • sets guidelines for situations that are not specifically covered in the contracts and how to handle them. • difficult to create these laws • laws must comply with standards and rights of people 1. Negative rights – liberties 2. Positive rights – claim rights Two kinds of rights • Liberties, negative rights are rights to act without coercive interference. • Claim-rights, positive rights, are rights that impose an obligation on some people to provide certain things for others. Levels of control for every policy: 1. Businesses and organizations must clearly state their policy for use of personal information. If a person proceeds and makes\ a purchase, explores the Web site, provides information, and so on, consent to the policy is assumed. 2. Businesses and organizations must provide an opt-out option. 3. Businesses and organizations must use an opt-in option. 4. Businesses and organizations must obtain consumer consent for each individual secondary use, disclosure, or transfer of their personal information. Government Databases • personal info distributed to and from them • federal government has about 3.5 billion personal files, 15 for every person in the country • provide protection, aiding government agencies to do what they must • make it easier to determine eligibility for certain programs, detect fraud, collect taxes, catch criminals, etc • without these databases, criminals would continue this fraud, costing the government billions of dollars • However, personal info could get into the wrong hands or be used in an unethical way threatening our rights Because of these unethical intrusions on personal information, Congress passed the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988. The Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988 requires government agencies to follow a review process before doing computer matching for various purposes. The Fourth Amendment • privacy right against intrusion and interference by the government • sets details for privacy related to personal data collected or used by other people, businesses, and organizations • government legally cannot search without a reasonable cause • but personal info distributed other ways student records, credit history, etc by docs, advisors, homes, and offices NOTHING IS REALLY SAFE • some laws even support this, allowing law-enforcement agencies to access non-government databases Two main privacy issues deal with children : • the first relating to safety dealing with child molesters who use the Web to find children, persuade them to trust them and then persuade them to meet with them; • the second is the sites designed for children that ask for personal information. •The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) protects children under the age of 13, prohibiting web sites from collecting that information without parental consent. This act states that the sites must post their policy telling what information they collect and how it is used. The Fair Credit Report Act of 1970 regulates the use of consumer information by private businesses. Credit information can only be given to employers, the government, insurance agencies, and such. This act sets stronger standards to reduce access to credit records and makes access under false pretenses a felony Government databases contain public records such as arrest records, marriage licenses, salaries wills, property ownerships, brokers, etc. A man was able to commit murder by obtaining an address of a specific person from DMV. The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 prohibits unauthorized disclosure of state motor-vehicle-departments records. Judges are required to file financial disclosure reports as stated in the Ethics in Government Act. This allows the public to review them and determine whether a certain judge may have a conflict of interest in a particular case. Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act in 1994 • allows law enforcement agencies to intercept communications • required the modifications of equipment and the technology used in communication systems to allow for this. • requires new equipment and modifications of old equipment to allow for easier interception of phone calls. • communication providers are required to meet the needs of tools for interception purposes The Federal Communications Act states that no person not authorized by the sender could intercept a message; there is no exception for law-enforcement agencies. The FBI however continued wiretapping and got away with it through a secret file system. After much controversy, Congress passed the Ominibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act which explicitly allowed wiretapping and electronic surveillance by law-enforcement agencies. The argument for this change was the necessity to combat organized crime such as riots over race issues, the assassination of President Kennedy, etc. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 •extended the wiretapping restrictions to electronic communications, including e-mail, cell phones, and pagers. •allows for more privacy from private companies and government snooping. The USA PATRIOT Act • allows the government to get a variety of information about people’s e-mail and ISP including payment information such as credit-card numbers, and the destination and time information for email. •This is the law that increased government surveillance and Wiretapping authority after the attacks on the World Trade Centers. Freedom of Information Act • allows organizations to obtain internal government memos about wiretapping • The government tried to keep details of its algorithms, software, and wiretapping capabilities secret because disclosing information can help criminals and terrorists. The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act • protects software sellers accepting the agreements for software quality as binding contracts for development, sale, and software licenses. • controversy quality may drop if they are not responsible for guaranteed materials. • The big debate over this law is whether legal standards and requirements for quality and warranties should be the same for software as for physical products. • Software as well as other products have, improves over time. How well did other products, such as cars, microwave ovens, etc, work when they were first developed? US Copyright law •gives the copyright holder the following exclusive rights: making copies of the work produce derivative works distribute copies perform and display the work in public. This law covers books maps charts eventually covered: photography sound recording movies. Copyright Act of 1909 •extended this law stating that the copyright has to be visible. • In 1976 and 1980, the copyright law was revised to cover software, including computer databases and programs. Eventually explicit legal limitations on copying and software copyright infringement were enforced because it was so easy to break this law. Large fines and even jail time was the punishment. The No Electronic Theft Act •enforced the law of copyright infringement more thoroughly. • states that one must not willingly violate this law, reproducing or distributing one or more copies of copyrighted works with a value of more than $1000 within six months. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998 • prohibits the making, distributing, or using of tools to circumvent technological copyright protection systems used by copyright holders. The Fair-use Doctrine •specifies possible fair uses as criticism, commenting, news reporting, teaching, and research. •determines when it is legal to copy software, music, movies, etc and when it is legal for software developers to copy some or all of another person’s program when trying to create or improve new software. Four factors that help to determine whether a particular use is a “fair-use” or not: • the purpose of the nature ex. nonprofit educational purposes are, commercial purposes aren’t • the nature of the copyrighted work ex. factual work not as protected as a novel would be • the amount and significance of the portion used, and lastly the effect on the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work ex. such as products that reduce sales (songs from a file sharing program) Napster Case A recent example, the Napster Issue questioned fair-use. The lawsuit was brought against them questioning whether copying and distribution of music was legal under the fair-use doctrine and if not, whether Napster was responsible for the actions of its users. Napster faught them arguing that it was fair-use because users copied their songs for personal not commercial use. Copyright experts argued that personal use was defined as limited use whereas Napster users were trading tons of songs among tons of people. Napster tried to argue that this program did not reduce sales of this music, but instead people would go buy the CD if they liked the song after listening to it downloaded from their program. Studies showed that record sales increased in the 90’s and began to decrease in 2000. Some people who were surveyed even said that they had not bought a single CD since this program arose. It is not 100% accurate to say that Napster is the reason sales decreased but it is a valid argument. Therefore, the court ruled that Napster was illegal copyright infringement. Napster also argued that it was similar to a search engine but unlike Napster, the search engines are protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act from the responsibility of users to violate copyrights. The court also ruled that Napster was a business, and was therefore responsible for not supervising its users as they traded unauthorized songs and titles. After this case, Napster was shut down but other file sharing programs appeared, mostly in other countries. These programs allow users to copy files without a central service to sue. Free Speech Issues • conflict with intellectual-property laws such as domain names. • Questions such as how far can a company’s name be extended being it is a protected trademark. For example, Ford used a jaguar, the animal in a commercial and now Jaguar, the car company sued them. Do you think this is right? • Law professors argue that laws that prohibit communicating information about people’s transactions violate freedom of speech. It’s pointed out that censoring speech with sexual content is a not a category of free speech not worthy of protection. Many federal computer crime laws cover electronic-funds transfer and bank fraud, interference with satellite operations, damage to government property, etc. Legal if authorized: • accessing a computer system • the use of services • accessing files • copying data, etc. Some illegal actions include: • disclosing passwords and codes • accessing with the intention to commit fraud • interrupting government operation, public utilities such as communication and transportation, etc. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ( CFAA) in 1986 • protects government jurisdiction such as government computers, financial and medical systems, computers connected to the Internet. • prohibits damaging of information, making the spread of computer viruses and malicious programs illegal. Situation: Software can end up causing millions of dollars in damage. Well-designed liability laws and criminal laws provide incentives to produce good systems – legal tools for increasing reliability and safety of computer systems, as they are for other industries. An individual, business, or government that does not have to pay for its mistakes and irresponsible actions will make more of them. Liability law in the US is very flawed. Often there is no scientific evidence or sensible reason to hold the manufacturer or seller of a product responsible for accidents. Who should be responsible for that? Should there be a law? Questions: What law-enforcement surveillance and interception policies are appropriate when we use computer networks for casual e-mail, purchases, access to discussion groups and information services, and sensitive business and financial communications? Should communications systems be designed to meet “ a nationwide standard for surveillance” or should they use the best technology available for achieving speed, convenience, low cost, and privacy? How much should the freedom and privacy of honest and peaceful people be weakened to aid the government’s law-enforcement activities? How far can we trust the government not to abuse its power?