Ashcroft, Ellison win US Big Brother privacy awards
SAN FRANCISCO, April 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General
John Ashcroft and database billionaire Larry Ellison were named
this year's most notorious American violators of personal
privacy by leading advocacy groups on Thursday.
The annual "Big Brother Awards" are presented to
government, corporations and private individuals who allegedly
have done the most to threaten personal privacy.
Privacy International, a London-based activist organization
made up of privacy experts and human rights organizations from
several dozen countries, presented the awards at the annual
"Computers, Freedom & Privacy" conference here this week. They
were joined by well-known U.S. privacy activists.
The "Worst Government Official" award went to Ashcroft.
Privacy International said the top U.S. law enforcement officer
is responsible for a massive increase in wiretapping of phones
and other electronics and for the imprisonment without charge
of as many as 1,200 people in the United States in the wake of
the Sept. 11 attacks on America.
The "Worst Corporate Invader" honor went to Ellison of
Oracle Corp. <ORCL.O>, the world's leading maker of database
software, for his advocacy of a centralized, Oracle-run
government database that could be used as a national
identification system.
The honors are given out in the spirit of author George
Orwell and his warning about police surveillance in the
totalitarian world of his novel "1984."
"The goal is to name and shame the bad actors," said
privacy advocate Jason Catlett, president and founder of
Junkbusters Corp. of Green Brook, New Jersey.
Other awards included "Most Invasive Company," "Most
Appalling Project" and "Lifetime Menace." Each "winner"
received a golden statue depicting a jackboot pressing down on
a human head.
"There's not a lot of surprises here," Evan Hendricks,
editor of the Washington-based Privacy Times newsletter, said
of the Big Brother nominees.
Most recipients fail to pick up the honor in person.
The "Most Appalling Project" honor went to the Enhanced
Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening (CAPPS) project, a
pre-flight screening of airline passengers set up in the wake
of the Sept. 11 attacks. The advocacy group argues this amounts
to discriminatory treatment of passengers based on race or
certain consumer behaviors.
Privacy International singled out technology developers on
the project including: HNC Software <HNCS.O>, a maker of fraud
detection tools; Acxiom Corp. <ACXM.O>, a collector of business
and consumer data; Equifax <EFX.N>, a credit information
agency.
Privacy International also hands out similar awards in
eight European countries.
"What Americans tend to forget is that what happens here in
America in terms of privacy practices and technologies is
getting exported to other countries and undermining their
privacy practices," said Stephan Endberg, a privacy consultant
with Open Business Innovation, based in Copenhagen, Denmark.
((Eric Auchard, San Francisco bureau, +1 415 677 3919))
REUTERS
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