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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, ETC.
About the author:
NOW WHAT, WISEGUY?
Congress has already asked the Office of Technology Assessment to gauge
the effect of burgeoning computer data base and telecommunications systems
on our civil liberties. Can law keep up with technology?
"Technology leaps ahead, and the law stands still," observes
Senator Patrick J. Leahy. "Technology eats away at what we assume
are our protections in the Constitution.... Within a decade, our privacy
is going to be as rare commodity as the old hand-cranked telephone."
Perhaps not, but it will take some creativity to come up with the solutions.
Writing in the programmer's monthly Dr. Dobb's Journal, Dean Gengle warns
computer users: "It's important that, in the discussion of what is
and is not 'computer crime,' we not let high-priced 'security consultants'
or politicians with their own axes to grind make our laws for us."
Genge, author of "The Netweaver's Sourcebook," adds, "It
is especially important that we not let the rare occurrence of a 'hacker
break-in' distract us from the larger potentially more serious issues at
hand."
Good advice.
AND LEST WE FORGET...
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, ETC.
Thanks to Paul Bernstein and George Trubow for taking the time to answer
so many questions. The interviews, in other forms, have appeared in the
office automation section of the Chicago Lawyer monthly newspaper.
They are used with permission of the editor, Rob Warden, who has encouraged
my investigation into issues surrounding computers and privacy law.
Harry M. Goodman and Donna Hall, coordinators of the Legal Conference
on California's WELL BBS, assumed the task of encouraging the discussion
of Bulletin Boards and Law held on that conference during the first two
weeks of June, 1985. They and other SYSOPS deserve more thanks than this
for their serious discussion of these matters and their educational campaign
regarding privacy and computers.
Robert Jacobson, consultant to California Assembly Representative Gwuen
Moore, provided answers and copies of materials, as did Ted Blanchard from
California State Senator John Doolittle's office.
Portions of the material on the LEIU came from an article in the Public
Eye magazine.
The staff and attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Unions of Northern
and Southern California provided much useful material.
David Kaplan of the Center for Investigative Reporting in California generously
extended permission to quote extensively from his exceptionally-detailed
study of government information gathering systems.
Material from Richard Criley was extracted from a brochure on First Amendment
Rights published by the Bill of Rights Foundation in Chicago.
About the author:
Chip Berlet is a staff researcher at Chicago's Midwest Research, a privately-funded
independent tax-exempt organization. He is secretary of the National Lawyers
Guild Civil Liberties Committee and edits the Public Eye Magazine,
which is associated with the Committee.
As a journalist he has written numerous articles on civil liberties and
related topics appearing in diverse publications ranging from the Chicago
Sun-Times to Alternative Media magazine. He spent three years
as a paralegal investigator at Chicago's Better Government Association
conducting pre-trial research on illegal government surveillance abuse
for the ACLU's "Red Squad" lawsuit.
As managing SYSOP of AMNET-1 BBS in Chicago, he is working with a group
of computer hobbyists and political activists to establish a network of
Bulletin Boards to assist the movement for social change by providing textbased
computerized information retrieval systems. Previous | TOC | Next |
