The Privacy Podcast

If the Education Department Secretary, Margaret Spellings, has her way, next year every college student across America will be forced to participate in the largest student surveillance program in the history of the country. Whether students have Federal loans or not, they will be forced to hand over SSN, DOB, location, courses, majors, GPA, and a host of other very sensitive data to a centralized federal database. The goal: Create more accurate college rankings for parents, students, and congress. This database will also be available to congress and the Department of Homeland Security for fighting terrorism. Regardless of the intent, this program is a cure that is worse than the disease.

Download MP3 (9:20min, 4.3MB)

National Center for Education Statistics Committee Report

A 2005 National Center for Education Statistics Committee Report, urging the adoption of a Unit Record system, or complete student surveillance.

AOL Search Records Database

Demonstration that anonymizing records is not a solution to keeping identifications safe.

Imagine a world without privacy. In this not-so-fictitious world, explore realistic scenarios of how cutting the wrong person off in traffic could get you arrested, how calling overseas can land you on a terrorism watch list, or buying a gallon of milk could threaten your credit. With standing on both sides of the political ideological divide, it is surprising that Privacy does not get more political traction, especially in this charged election season. Despite the government and private sector affirmatively eroding privacy rights of large classes of people, privacy has not yet caught on as a major social movement. Privacy advocates must spur a debate about what role privacy should play in our democratic society.

Download MP3 (10:04min, 4.7MB)

Privacy Tips

Privacy tips from privacyrights.org