Overview on Privacy

"The right to be left alone -- the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by a free people." - Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. U.S. (1928).

Use the references below to learn about privacy. It is important that you gain an understanding of the current laws in place today, if any, and what are the most recent controversial issues of today concerning privacy. You are expected to use the below references to answer certain questions from the pre-class worksheet.

References

• The Electronic Privacy Information Center's privacy topics A - Z (http://www.epic.org/privacy/ - topics) - covers such topics as cookies, cryptography policy, internet privacy, wiretapping and electronic surveillance just to mention a few.
• White House Encryption Policy Announcement (http://www.epic.org/crypto/announce_9_16.html)
• Cyberspace Electronic Security Act (http://www.epic.org/crypto/legislation/cesa/)
• The Privacy Survival Guide (http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs1-surv.htm) is a useful way for you to be able to protect yourself. Every day most of us give away information about ourselves -- sometimes knowingly and other times when we do not even realize it.
• "Cryptography and Liberty 2000: An International Survey of Encryption Policy", available at: http://www2.epic.org/reports/crypto2000/
• Washington Post data on Argentina: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/worldref/country/argentin.htm
• The Constitution of Argentina: http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/law/ar__indx.html
• CIA Factbook about Argentina http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ar.html
• A collection of resources on Argentina: http://home.tampabay.rr.com/latinoconnect/argentin.html
• Political Information on Argentina: http://data.georgetown.edu/pdba/Countries/countries.cfm?ID=38

Selected portions of the Constitution of Argentina

(Translated by Fernando Das Neves)

Article 18:

A personís home is out of the reach of the state for inspection purposes, as are mail and private papers too; a law will decide which cases and what reasons will allow for police forces to execute a search warrant or entering the house.

Article 43, Section 3

Any person will be able to request this action [speaking of habeas data] to know the content of all the data pertaining to him or her and their usage, contained in public or private records and databanks, whose purpose is to provide reports. In case of falsehood of information or its use for discriminative purposes, a person will be able to demand the deletion, correction, confidentiality or update of the date contained in the above records. This article will not affect the secrecy of sources in journalism.

NOTE: As of today this article was not "regulated", meaning that the specific way in which this article is going to be applied and enforced have not been made into law. For reasons unknown to the general public since 1994 the Argentinean congress has ignored 3 intents of made this article into a law. A suspected cause is the strong influence and opposition of credit and marketing data bank companies.

---

Pre-Class Worksheet for Privacy

Name : __________________________

1.) What is the DNI in Argentina?

2.) Suppose a company is maintaining incorrect information about you. How should that situation be corrected considering both your rights and the companyís rights?

3.) What are the five principles of "The Code of Fair Information Practices"?

-

-

-

-

-

4.) Identify several commonalities between Argentinan and American privacy laws.

5.) Do you feel the government should be able to perform wiretaps on your home/business telephone?