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Big Iron and the Small Government: On the History of Data Collection and Privacy in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2016

Lawrence Cappello
Lawrence Cappello*
Affiliation:
CUNY Queens College
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Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 177 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

NOTES

1. Gannon, Robert, “Big Brother 7074 Is Watching You,” Popular Science, March 1963, 86–88Google Scholar, 206–8; Bergen Evening Record, 21 August 1963; David Bergamini, “Government by Computers?” The Reporter, 17 August 1961, 21.

2. Privacy is, of course, not completely absent in historical study. Historian David H. Flaherty explored perceptions of privacy in the colonial period in Privacy in Colonial New England (Charlottesville, 1972); see also legal scholar and Privacy Journal editor Robert Ellis Smith’s “Ben Franklin’s Website: Privacy and Curiosity from Plymouth Rock to the Internet,” in Privacy Journal (2000). The field nevertheless remains drastically underrepresented given the prominence of the privacy issue in contemporary society.

3. The field is vast. Some popular works include: Thomas, Douglas and Loader, Brian, Cybercrime: Law Enforcement, Security, and Surveillance in the Information Age (London, 2000);Google Scholar Lyon, David, Surveillance Studies: An Overview (Cambridge, 2007);Google Scholar Laudon, Kenneth C., Dossier Society: Value Choices in the Design of National Information Systems (New York, 1986);Google Scholar P. Bodell, “Exploring the Realities of Megapixel Surveillance Technology,” Security Infowatch.com; Engelhardt, Tom, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single Superpower World (Chicago, 2014)Google Scholar; D. Wolfe, “Nanotech on the Front Lines,” Forbes, 19 March 2003; T. Zeller, “Your Life as an Open Book,” New York Times, 12 August 2006; A. Loswosky, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” The Guardian, 10 June 2004.

4. Again, the field is extensive. Among the more notable works: Kuner, Christopher, Transborder Data Flows and Data Privacy Law (2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lane, Julia et al., Privacy, Big Data, and the Public Good: Frameworks for Engagement (2014)Google Scholar; Solove, Daniel J. and Rotenberg, Marc, Information Privacy Law (New York, 2003)Google Scholar; Solove, Daniel J., Understanding Privacy (Cambridge, Mass., 2008);Google Scholar Soma, John T., and Rynerson, Stephen D., Privacy Law in a Nutshell (St. Paul, 2008);Google Scholar Wacks, Raymond, Privacy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2015);Google Scholar Alan F. Westin, Privacy and Freedom (New York, 1967), and Databanks in a Free Society: Computers, Record-Keeping, and Privacy (New York, 1972).

5. See Bennett, Colin J. and Raab, Charles D.. The Governance of Privacy: Policy Instruments in Global Perspective (Aldershot, 2003), xix–xxiiGoogle Scholar; Bennett, Colin J. and David Lyon, Playing the Identity Card: Surveillance, Security, and Identification in Global Perspective (London, 2008)Google Scholar; Bennett, Colin J., The Privacy Advocates: Resisting the Spread of Surveillance (Cambridge, Mass., 2010)Google Scholar; Bennett, Colin J. and Grant, Rebecca, Visions of Privacy: Policy Choices for the Digital Age (Toronto, 1999)Google Scholar; Flaherty, David H., Protecting Privacy in Surveillance Societies: The Federal Republic of Germany, Sweden, France, Canada, and the United States (Chapel Hill, 1989)Google Scholar.

6. Regan, Priscilla M., Legislating Privacy: Technology, Social Values, and Public Policy (Chapel Hill, 1995), 95–108Google Scholar; Solove, Understanding Privacy, 172–90; Wacks, Privacy, 45; Frederick S. Lane, American Privacy: The 400-Year History of Our Most Contested Right (Boston, 2009), 211–20; Oversight of Computer Matching to Detect Fraud and Mismanagement in Government Programs: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., 15 and 16 December 1982 (Washington, D.C., 1983).

7. Nissenbaum, Helen, Privacy in Context Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life (Stanford, 2010), 38–45.Google Scholar

8. Rule, James B., Privacy in Peril (Oxford, 2007), x–xiii, 25–48Google Scholar.

9. Solove, , Understanding Privacy, 9–10Google Scholar; Nissenbaum, Privacy in Context Technology, 1–17.

10. Campbell-Kelly, Martin and Aspray, William, Computer: A History of the Information Machine (New York, 1996), 49–55Google Scholar; see also Solove, Daniel J., The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age (New York, 2004), 13–26Google Scholar; John W. Macy Jr., How Computers Are Being Used in Washington to Streamline Personnel Administration—To the Individual’s Benefit, in 1966 House Hearings on the Computer and Invasion of Privacy, 35–38.

11. Packard, Vance, The Naked Society (New York, 1964);Google Scholar Brenton, Myron, The Privacy Invaders (New York, 1964).Google Scholar

12. Kaysen, Carl, Report of the Task Force on the Storage of and Access to Government Statistics (Washington, D.C., 1965).Google Scholar

13. 1966 House Hearings on the Computer and Invasion of Privacy, 4–5, 7–20.

14. Kaysen Report 2, 1966 House Hearings on the Computer and Invasion of Privacy, 36.

15. 1966 House Hearings on the Computer and Invasion of Privacy, 2, 5–9, 13–18.

16. Ibid., 26, 119–31.

17. Westin, , Privacy and Freedom, 1–4, 27–29Google Scholar.

18. Rule 15–17.

19. Ibid.

20. Fried, Charles, An Anatomy of Values: Problems of Personal and Social Choice (Cambridge, Mass., 1970)Google Scholar; Miller, Arthur R., The Assault on Privacy: Computers, Data Banks, and Dossiers (Ann Arbor, 1971)Google Scholar; U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Records, Computers, and the Rights of Citizens (Cambridge, Mass., 1973) (hereafter cited as 1974 HEW Report).

21. 1974 HEW Report.

22. Ibid., 11–13.

23. Ibid., 70–95; Bennett, The Privacy Advocates, 6–9.

24. “The First Amendment: A Living Thought in the Computer Age,” 4 Columbia Human Rights Law Review, no. 1 (1972): 31–30.

25. 1974 Senate Hearings, 517, 519–24.

26. United States, Legislative History of the Privacy Act of 1974, S. 3418, Public Law 93–579: Source Book on Privacy (Washington, D.C., 1976)Google Scholar; United States, Overview of the Privacy Act of 1974. [Washington, D.C.]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties, 2010.

27. Regan, Legislating Privacy, 79–85; Overview of the Privacy Act of 1974.

28. Regan, Legislating Privacy, xiii–xv; Nissenbaum, Privacy in Context Technology, 65–66.

29. United States, Electronic Record Systems and Individual Privacy (Washington, D.C., 1986)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as 1986 OTA Report); United States, Oversight of Computer Matching to Detect Fraud and Mismanagement in Government Programs: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., 15 and 16 December 1982. Washington, D.C., 1983 (hereafter cited as 1982 Senate Hearings).

30. 1986 OTA Report, 4–5, 7.

31. Ibid., 9–22; Galemore, Gary L., The Grace Commission, Washington, D.C., Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 1993Google Scholar. Guy B. Peters and Charles H. Levine, The Unfinished Agenda for Civil Service Reform: Implications of the Grace Commission Report (Washington, D.C., 1985).

32. For more on the conservative ascendency of the late 1970s, see Critchlow, Donald T., The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History (Cambridge, Mass., 2007)Google Scholar; Patterson, James T., Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush V. Gore (New York, 2005)Google Scholar; Link, William A., Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern Conservatism (New York, 2008)Google Scholar.

33. SPECTRE was also the name of a fictional organization comprised of supervillains and terrorists that appeared in a number of Ian Fleming’s popular James Bond films and novels. One can only speculate that this reference was lost on the parties responsible for naming the program.

34. 1982 Senate Hearings, 7–9, 17.

35. Ibid., 20; 1986 OTA Report 3; Regan, Legislating Privacy, 90.

36. 1982 Senate Hearings, 79; see also Shattuck, John, “In The Shadow of 1984: National Identification Systems, Computer Matching, and Privacy in the United States,” Hastings Law Journal 35, no. 6 (1984): 991–1005Google Scholar.

37. Ibid.

38. 1982 Senate Hearings, 85; Regan, Legislating Privacy, 96.

39. Laudon, Kenneth C., Dossier Society: Value Choices in the Design of National Information Systems (New York, 1986).Google Scholar

40. United States, Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988: Report (to Accompany H.R. 4699) (Including Cost Estimate of the Congressional Budget Office) (Washington, D.C., 1988)Google Scholar; Regan, Legislating Privacy, 95–99; Lane, American Privacy, 224; see also Regan, Priscilla M., “Data Integrity Boards: Institutional Innovation and Congressional Oversight,” Government Information Quarterly 10, no. 4 (1993)Google Scholar, and United States General Accounting Office, Computer Matching: Quality of Decisions and Supporting Analyses Little Affected by 1988 Act, GAO/PEMD, 1993.

41. See Poster, Mark, The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context (Chicago, 1990);Google Scholar Beniger, James R., The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1986);Google Scholar Castells, Manuel, The Rise of the Network Society (Malden, Mass., 1996).Google Scholar

42. See Cappello, Lawrence, “Privacy and the Profit Motive,” The Nation, 4 May 2015Google Scholar.