From: Daniel Chirlin <djc2106@columbia.edu>
  To  : cpc@emoglen.law.columbia.edu <cpc@emoglen.law.columbia.edu>
  Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 13:51:40 -0400

[CPC] Paper 2: Plastic Identity

Plastic identity
=20
How plastic is our identity?  It is moldable plastic.  Light it up with a
bitstream and we can shape it into whatever we desire.  With a little
know-how and some elbow grease we can be whoever we want on the net.  Sexua=
l
predators know this.  But identity is also the plastic of American Express,
leaving a digital trail as clear and confessional as a credit card
statement.  Unless you are a Luddite, chances are good that the trail is
bright and easy to follow: the grocery store savings card, the Amazon.com
wishlists, your Netflix queue, Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, your blog,
your IM away messages, your friends=B9 blog, your friends=B9 IM away messages
and even emails.  All of these creature comforts combine to rob us of the
sole proprietorships of our identities. Miraculously, the twenty-first
century has seen marketization of almost everything conceivable, including
our identities.  Identity sells. And where there is a market, invariably
there is a black market.
=20
Yesterday HP reported a laptop stolen with the personal information of
nearly 200,000 employees.[1]  Today, a web-based =B3Free-iPod=B2 firm was serve=
d
with a privacy-breach suit for releasing millions of email addresses it had
pledged to keep private.[2]  Tomorrow Google will admit that it is keeping
track of where you are at all times =AD well, if you use the free Wi-Fi in Sa=
n
Francisco, that is.[3]  Those handy pop-ups you get, informing you about th=
e
Pizza Hut 30 yards on the left, that is Google turning a profit on the sale
of your anonymity.
=20
Opinions differ as to the extent of the threat that personality theft poses
to the average person.  Some point to the numbers and claim fraud is a
rampant plague on consumers.  Others dismiss the fears as exaggerated =AD as
the product of overactive media hype.  The reality probably lies somewhere
in the middle.  Incidents of identity fraud are on the rise as lives become
more plastic.  According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (=B3PRC=B2) betwee=
n
February and October last year, over 50 million personal records were
inappropriately exposed to the public.  Beth Givens, PRC director, insists
that =B3identity theft is at epidemic proportions.=B2  Still, as a recent study
by Javelin Strategy & Research suggests, most instances of fraud occur in
the paper environment.  Digital life is =B3really pretty safe,=B2 says Cheryl
Charles, a senior director at BITS =AD a technology group that represents 100
of the largest financial institutions.  Do not worry, the major credit card
companies have zero-liability fraud coverage.  But it is not always that
easy to pick up the pieces after becoming a victim of fraud.[4]
=20
Yet fraud only scratches the surface of the threats posed by a loss of our
identities.  In this brave new world, secrets are becoming a rare commodity
and the past is never forgotten.  Woe be a Supreme Court Justice nominee in
2030, for the whole of her life will be displayable writ large on the walls
of the Senate. Right-wing blogger Ben Domenech discovered this the hard way
when the announcement of his appointment as a paid Washington Post
contributor led to a flurry of partisan attacks from the blogosphere.
Discovering some old articles that appeared to be plagiarized =AD some from
his high school and college years =AD the left wing bloggers succeeded in
forcing his immediate resignation.  No past is left unhidden.
=20
And it is not just that we are selling our identities.  If that were the
extent of the problem, perhaps a campaign of awareness could remedy it.  No=
.
Our government will stop at nothing to know everything about us.  They tell
us that it is for our own protection.  It is to keep the terrorists from
harming us.  The national ID numbers will protect us from fraud.  Total
Information Awareness (TIA) is a bad idea?  Unpopular?  Well, let=B9s just
give it a different name and bury it in a classified warehouse.  Our
government must be in control of everything.
=20
So how do we combat this persistence from all sectors?  It seems to me the
greatest impediments to halting or at least slowing the process are
ignorance and apathy.  Ignorance, because most people are simply unaware of
the technologies and the degree to which they rob us of our individuality.
And apathy, because of a difficulty in articulating exactly why identity
loss should cause such concern.
=20
Maybe the answer is to concretize the problem.  MySpace is dangerous becaus=
e
sexual predators find ample reserves of prey, complete with all the
necessary tools for trapping them in the web.[5] Amazon.com wishlists betra=
y
your inner-terrorist compulsions and single you out for red-flag
treatment.[6] Blogs archive a mountain of personal anecdotes, views and
information, some of which may lose you a job one day.[7]  Loose security
permits shady characters to obtain all your personal financial information
and create all sorts of havoc with your credit report.[8]  Cyberstalkers
assume your identity and post your personal information to deviant sites,
flooding you with a deluge of creepy calls and creepier visitors.[9]  The
evidence exists, it is only a matter of impressing it upon the masses.
=20
As future lawyers, we are uniquely situated in society to make a difference=
.
But our role requires one thing above all else: advocacy.  It will play a
pivotal part in shaping attitudes toward change.  Not only regime change,
which becomes more clearly necessary with every passing day =AD with a
government that is wiretapping our domestic calls =AD but change in terms of
individual attitude.
=20
Some have taken up this banner.  Organizations such as EFF and privacy.org
battle in the trenches.  They file FOIAs and lawsuits and spread the gospel=
.
Others, bloggers among them, find the internet a powerful resource in their
own small wars.  These individuals carry the word to the people.  In a
democratic soup, information is the most important ingredient.  Before ther=
e
is change, the ranks of the movement must swell and who better than lawyers
to lead the cause?
=20
=20
[1] =B3Laptop with HP Employee Data Stolen,=B2 CNET News.com, March 22, 2006.
http://news.com.com/Laptop+with+HP+employee+data+stolen/2100-7348_3-6052964=
.
html
[2] =B3=B9Free iPod=B9 Firm Hit with Privacy-Breach Suit,=B2 CNET News.com, March
23, 2006.=20
http://news.com.com/Free+iPod+firm+hit+with+privacy-breach+suit/2100-1047_3=
-
6053252.html
[3] =B3Wi-Fi Plan Stirs Big Brother Concerns Log-on Rule would allow Google t=
o
Track Users=B9 Whereabouts in S.F.,=B2 SF Chronicle, April 8, 2006.
[4] No Place to Hide, Robert O=B9Harrow, 2005.
[5]=B3Strangers in MySpace,=B2 Times Herald-Record, February 12, 2006.
http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2006/02/12/myspace.html
[6] =B3Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists,=B2 January 4=
,
2006. http://www.applefritter.com/bannedbooks
[7] =B3Post.com Blogger Quits Among Furor,=B2 Washington Post, March 25, 2006.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/24/AR200603240=
1
206.html
[8] =B3Separating Myth from Reality in ID Theft,=B2 CNET news.com, October 24,
2005.=20
http://news.com.com/Separating+myth+from+reality+in+ID+theft/2100-1029_3-59=
0
7165.html?tag=3Dst.num
[9] =B3A Sinister Web Entraps Victims of Cyberstalkers,=B2 NY Times, April 17,
2006.=20
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/17/technology/17stalk.html?ex=3D1302926400&en=3D=
0
786782c825908a7&ei=3D5088&partner=3Drssnyt&emc=3Drss
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/17/technology/17stalk.html?ex=3D1302926400&am=
p
;en=3D0786782c825908a7&ei=3D5088&partner=3Drssnyt&emc=3Drss>
=20



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