From: SCAN THIS NEWS Date: 1.17.2000 The victor in the battle to secure control over personal information was decided on Wednesday, January 12, 2000. On that day the United States Supreme Court unceremoniously transferred control to the State.
In considering the constitutionality of the deceptively named "Driver's Privacy Protection Act," the Court held: "In enacting the DPPA, Congress did not run afoul of the federalism principles." It concluded that the DPPA does not violate the Tenth Amendment, and is a proper Congressional authority under the Commerce Clause.
Not mentioned in the Courts Opinion is the fact that the DPPA includes not one single provision addressing interstate exchanges of data -- not one. Neither was "regulation of interstate commerce" ever proffered by the Act's sponsors as an objective in adopting the law -- far from it. In fact, the ostensible purpose for the law was to prevent private investigators from gaining access to motor vehicle records. Guess what. The DPPA expressly grants access to private investigators.
The Court's logic went as follows: "State departments of motor vehicles require drivers and automobile owners to provide personal information as a condition of obtaining a driver's license or registering an automobile ...many States sell this information to individuals and businesses ... the motor vehicle information which the States have historically sold is used by insurers, manufacturers, direct marketers, and others engaged in interstate commerce ... the DPPA is a proper exercise of Congress' authority to regulate interstate commerce."
By so ruling, the Court stripped individuals of all control they may have otherwise enjoyed over information required of them by the State. The Court bequeathed control to the very entity most privacy advocates most wanted to protect it from -- Big Brother.
The "identifying information" discussed by the Court includes "a person's name, address, telephone number, vehicle description, Social Security number, medical information, and photograph." These are precisely the items of "personal information" that true "privacy warriors" were fighting to maintain control over -- those warriors, that is, who understood that, just as in any other battle, "control" is the ultimate goal. Those who control the Object of a battle control the outcome of the battle. These "items of identifying information" were the Object of the battle.
As the Court correctly observed, "States require" drivers and automobile owners to disclose personal information." States then sell and further disseminate this information to others (within their approved inner circle) including federal and state government agencies as well as large businesses. In other words, the State compels individuals, through coercive measures, to disclose private information, ostensibly for one single purpose -- to obtain a driver's license -- then transfers that "private information" to numerous other third party entities for numerous other purposes. This, in itself, is a clearly deceptive abuse of authority.
Nothing defines the debate over the issue of "privacy" better than the subject of driver's license information collected by the State. Every American who works must drive. Driving is a fundamental exercise in the "pursuit of Happiness." You cannot obtain a driver's license without supplying the State with these mandatory items of identifying information. The databases of identifying information maintained by the various State driver's licensing agencies represent the very essence of the privacy debate -- and we just lost all control over that data.
Many people have not yet caught on to this reality. Many people do not understand the far reaching implications of the Court's DPPA Decision. This was the pivotal case in the privacy debate. The reality of this fact will be borne out in the years to come.
Already one of the world's largest credit reporting and data collecting agencies, Experian, Inc., has issued a news release stating that the company had developed a "300 million record motor vehicle database containing more than 9 billion rows of data." It went on to state that the database is updated daily and that "all data is acquired from sources that meet either the federally mandated Drivers Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) or industry guidelines." The news release also stated that the database was "built from more than 150 sources, including states' Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV)" and that it offers "100 percent coverage of all registered and titled vehicles."
From now on, Congress -- the State -- federal government -- Big Brother -- will decide who will, and who will not, have access to your records. You have no control over what they decide. Already that list is quite long.
In what can only be described as a clever tactical maneuver, Big Brother statists tricked even seasoned privacy advocates into embracing their Trojan Horse ruse, the DPPA, by simply giving the anti-privacy law a "pro-privacy" sounding name! Brilliant! It worked!
The Supreme Court decision is a flagrant and abominable violation of the Tenth Amendment, and a perverted abuse of the Commerce Clause. The DPPA tramples on individual "privacy rights" by taking control away from the individual and transferring it into the hands of a central government authority. You doubt that? Or don't understand how this could be when all the newspapers reported that the "privacy protection law" will "protect privacy"? Did you ever read in any of those glossed over reports anything explaining exactly how the law will protect your privacy? Did you read one detailed essay laying out the measures that will keep your data out of the hands of Big Brother? No, because they can't -- it won't. Either the drafters of these articles simply do not understand the law, or they are part of the ruse themselves -- they like the idea of Big Brother having control... there are those who do.
Did you not read above what the Court said: "...the DPPA is a proper exercise of Congress' authority." The Court conceded "authority" over our private information to Congress, the State, Big Brother. Anyone can read the Constitution and see that this is a perversion of constitutional power, nevertheless this is what the court ruled. Where does the Constitution grant Congress "authority" over information that identifies "who you are"? Where is it? Where does it exist? This is information that can be used to control society. Knowledge is power, and knowledge about "who you are" is power over you.
The good news is that these blatant abuses of authority actually help bring more people to an awareness and an understanding of the violations currently taking place in Congress and the Courts. It is only when people recognize that a problem exists, and when they can clearly identify the source of the problem, that they will begin to address it. The more flagrant these abuses become, the easier it is to identify and expose them. This is the only positive thing that can possibly be said about the abominable DPPA and the subsequent Supreme Court ruling. They are both so offensive, so contrary to the principles of Rights, Liberty and Freedom, that almost anyone can recognize it.
------ Two Models for Protecting Privacy and the DPPA http://www.networkusa.org/fingerprint/page1b/fp-dppa-two-models.html
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