In the Federal Government, electronic records are as indispensable as their paper counterparts for documenting citizens' rights, the actions for which officials are accountable, and the nation's history.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
We live in a world of increasing dependence on electronic records and retrieval, unprecedented security and preservation concerns, and insufficient attention to civic and democratic education.
Despite being in public life, I value my own privacy immensely and would be as concerned as anyone else if I thought my mobile phone records could be easily available to officials across government.
Just because technological advances have made it easier for the federal government to collect information doesn't mean that our privacy rights can or should be violated on the ground or in the air.
What I argue is that if I'm going to be held accountable for my actions that I should be allowed to record... my actions. Especially if somebody else is keeping a record of my actions.
Electronic medical records are, in a lot of ways, I think the aspect of technology that is going to revolutionize the way we deliver care. And it's not just that we will be able to collect information, it's that everyone involved in the healthcare enterprise will be able to use that information more effectively.
With those people, I'm very far apart, because I believe that government access to communications and stored records is valuable when done under tightly controlled conditions which protect legitimate privacy interests.
There are, for example, exemptions in FOIA in which the government can withhold certain kinds of information, and the courts have recognized that there is certain documentation that do deserve protection, that certain privileges do apply and do deserve protection.
State courts usually rule that correspondence between government officials, about government business, are public records, whether they use their government e-mail accounts or private ones.
In the Iraq war, for instance, so much of the information is digitized and can easily be wiped out. That will make it very hard to write accurate histories. Also, there's a much greater opportunity for suppression of information before it can even be archived.
If the U.N. were to be successful in its efforts to control the Internet, countries where human rights records range from questionable to criminal could be put in charge of determining what is and is not allowed to appear online.
No opposing quotes found.