HANLY@UOFMCC.BITNET (Ken Hanly) (01/29/88)
In a recent edition of "Computers & Society Digest" Guthery notes that access to information is quite rightfully restricted by blacklisting unions and others who might use this information against the interests of the corporations that have agreed to have this information listed. However, there are limitations upon the rights of individuals to make agreements both moral and legal. The Mafia might agree to provide an agent with a list of hitmen and would of course demand that the publication of the list should be quite restrictive! It is not at all clear that in such a case the police have not a moral and probably a legal right as well to access to this information, in spite of an agreement between Mafia and agent. Where agreements between individuals may not be in the public good or may involve serious injustice to others, it is not at all evident that agreement between individuals even if freely arrived should take precedence over other moral concerns. Presumably D & B sell this information to approved customers, so in fact they are putting a certain product -information- on the market. Is it OK to have any restrictions people might agree to put on sales? What if the providers of information had agreed that it would not be distributed to blacks, or women? There may be stronger reasons on the side of restriction than on availability but Guthery's appeal to the freedom of people to contract with one another over what they 'own' does not seem to settle with matter; rather, it is one consideration along with many others. Ken Hanly
Guthery@asc.sdr.slb.com (Guthery) (02/19/88)
Ken Hanly recently asks if he and I can enter into a contract whereby he will tell me his sox size if I promise not to tell any white person. The answer is not only can we but, more importantly, I believe this contract would (and should) be upheld by any democratic judicial system. A third person may object to our entering into this agreement on moral or religious grounds but to the extent that Mr. Hanly and I are not of the same moral or religious persuasion as the objector, this is of no consequence. There must be a clear and compelling showing of interference with public good before the state's interests can supercede private interests. All information about Mr. Hanly's person is his property and he can do with it as he pleases. He must reveal his annual income to the IRS for the proper administration of the tax system but he does not have to reveal his annual income to the Department of the Interior to gain admission to a national park. To my knowledge, he is not obliged to reveal his sox size to anyone. In the computer age as in all others, information is property. The speed and facility with which one can process it doesn't alter this fact. Unlike land, it it can be easily duplicated and therefore easily jointly owned. This does not, however, alter its property status. The concerns individuals have about revealing their bank PIN number or their HIV virus count to those who would do them harm, are the same concerns that corporations have toward revealing their private information to those who would do them harm. For both, we have to be very careful about forcing them to reveal such information and we have to err on the side of doing no harm.