IP Democracy: Bringing Privacy Issues into the Sunshine

The Wall Street Journal’s Dionne Searcey reports that Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, “is seeking information from 20 phone, cable and Internet company executives about whether they provided information to the federal government for a secret domestic surveillance program.”

Rep. Conyers, who along with other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, held a forum related to the surveillance program last week, is seeking to know detailed information about what types of communications, if any, were monitored and whether customers were notified as well as whether the companies provided the government with access to the companies’ hardware and software.

“I write to inquire whether your company has allowed the federal government to eavesdrop on customer communications through your facilities or has turned over customer records when not compelled to do so by law,” Rep. Conyers wrote in the letter.

Though there’s certainly an element of calculated political partisanship at play, the recent flurry of public debate over government and company actions and policies in the “NSA eavesdropping” and “search data” controversies seems like a healthy development. Addressing these issues seems like a fundamental step we need to take as a society in terms of setting 21st century ground rules for our political and economic systems. In that context, pushing for a few more rays of “sunshine” from both the feds and the corporate sector strikes me as a good idea.

Posted by Mitch Shapiro on January 23, 2006 2:25 PM to IP Democracy