This Time I'm Almost Agreeing With Malkin. Seriously.
Published by BG on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 at 9:43 PM.Alright, so tell me how I'm supposed to feel about this:
Michelle Malkin: Data-mining for me, but not for thee
Following the link in her four-word accusation to the so-very-hated liberal rag brings you to a page which quotes a Village Voice article thusly:
Obviously, the big differences are that companies don't exert direct power over your freedoms, nor are you obligated to participate in their data mining operations. You could simply choose not to purchase the product or service, and they wouldn't have your data to mine. It's an ugly reality of marketing in the 21st century that since companies can collect this data, they will, and most will share and/or sell it in the interest of targeted servicing, and collapsing the purchasing cycle through specifically suggestive sales.
Again, a customer doesn't have to buy these products and/or services. He can choose not to, or choose to spend his money with companies who provide a privacy statement which agrees with their ideals more closely than another.
So let the market decide! If this is a problem, people will recognize, dollars will shift, policies will change! That being said...
That couldn't happen, right? Wrong.
All it takes is for one of thousands of FBI or DOJ employees with the ability to file a non-warrant enabled National Security Letter request, and the government can demand the New York Times, Time Magazine, or Time Warner turn over databases full of information they use for targeted marketing for any reason, or no reason at all.
So the realist in me understands that when the NYT says the government shouldn't collect this information, it's not hypocritical to be datamining their own customers' behavior at the same time. The NYT doesn't exactly have a law enforcement arm, nor do they retain radical theories regarding Habeus Corpus detentions of American citizens. But the libertarian instincts I have run strong. I think that government shouldn't be able to acquire this information, and if it's out there they're going to want to get their hands on it.
I don't for a second believe that this is limited to this administration either. There are always going to be corrupt people in our government, and I'd probably prefer that people in power that are prone to corruption should have the ability to harvest information against their enemies that would normally fall under a casual expectation of privacy.
So no, the Times isn't hypocritical... but they shouldn't be collecting this information anyway. It's a small piece of a bigger puzzle of privacy that should belong to the individual, and not his government.
And so, I guess that's how I give a sideways pass at almost agreeing with Michelle Malkin.
Michelle Malkin: Data-mining for me, but not for thee
NYTimes' hypocrisy exposed again.
Following the link in her four-word accusation to the so-very-hated liberal rag brings you to a page which quotes a Village Voice article thusly:
Barely a year after their reporters won a Pulitzer prize for exposing data mining of ordinary citizens by a government spy agency, New York Times officials had some exciting news for stockholders last week: The Times company plans to do its own data mining of ordinary citizens, in the name of online profits.
Obviously, the big differences are that companies don't exert direct power over your freedoms, nor are you obligated to participate in their data mining operations. You could simply choose not to purchase the product or service, and they wouldn't have your data to mine. It's an ugly reality of marketing in the 21st century that since companies can collect this data, they will, and most will share and/or sell it in the interest of targeted servicing, and collapsing the purchasing cycle through specifically suggestive sales.
Again, a customer doesn't have to buy these products and/or services. He can choose not to, or choose to spend his money with companies who provide a privacy statement which agrees with their ideals more closely than another.
So let the market decide! If this is a problem, people will recognize, dollars will shift, policies will change! That being said...
Do readers really want data-mining behavior from their newspapers—not just the Times but every other big media outlet? Do they want newspaper databases to store reading histories, minute by minute, until one day the government shows up to examine ordinary citizens' shopping and viewing and chatting habits in detail? If you think it can't happen, ask the librarians who've been told to hand over readers' checkout records under the Patriot Act.
That couldn't happen, right? Wrong.
Over a three-year period ending in 2005, the FBI collected intimate information about the lives of a population roughly the size of Bethesda's -- 52,000 -- and stored it in an intelligence database accessible to about 12,000 federal, state and local law enforcement authorities and to certain foreign governments.
The FBI did so without systematically retaining evidence that its data collection was legal, without ensuring that all the data it obtained matched its needs or requests, without correctly tallying and reporting its efforts to Congress, and without ferreting out all of its abuses and reporting them to an intelligence oversight board.
All it takes is for one of thousands of FBI or DOJ employees with the ability to file a non-warrant enabled National Security Letter request, and the government can demand the New York Times, Time Magazine, or Time Warner turn over databases full of information they use for targeted marketing for any reason, or no reason at all.
So the realist in me understands that when the NYT says the government shouldn't collect this information, it's not hypocritical to be datamining their own customers' behavior at the same time. The NYT doesn't exactly have a law enforcement arm, nor do they retain radical theories regarding Habeus Corpus detentions of American citizens. But the libertarian instincts I have run strong. I think that government shouldn't be able to acquire this information, and if it's out there they're going to want to get their hands on it.
I don't for a second believe that this is limited to this administration either. There are always going to be corrupt people in our government, and I'd probably prefer that people in power that are prone to corruption should have the ability to harvest information against their enemies that would normally fall under a casual expectation of privacy.
So no, the Times isn't hypocritical... but they shouldn't be collecting this information anyway. It's a small piece of a bigger puzzle of privacy that should belong to the individual, and not his government.
And so, I guess that's how I give a sideways pass at almost agreeing with Michelle Malkin.
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