Jim Doyle wants money, money, money.
He doesn't care if government agencies have to break the law to do it.
From the Wisconsin State Journal:
Three local women sued state Department of Transportation officials in federal court Thursday, alleging that the department illegally sold drivers’ personal information to firms that made it available for sale on the Internet.
Plaintiffs Margaret M. Kraege, of Madison; Kelly C. Tomko, of Rio; and Stephanie A. Tomko, of Windsor, are seeking class action certification for their lawsuit against DOT Secretary Frank Busalacchi and Lynn Judd, administrator of the state Division of Motor Vehicles.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Madison, alleges that Busalacchi, Judd and up to 10 other unknown persons violated the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act by selling personal information of tens of thousands of licensed Wisconsin drivers to Shadowsoft, a Texas corporation specializing in public records database distribution. Shadowsoft in turn sold it to PublicData, which made the information available for search and sale on its Web site, the lawsuit alleges.
The federal act, which took effect in 2000, restricts access to driver records to protect the privacy of individuals.
The lawsuit also seeks to include as plaintiffs anyone licensed to drive in Wisconsin from June 4, 2004 and forward whose personal information was disclosed to Shadowsoft or PublicData.
If the allegations are true and Doyle's DOT violated the law to make a buck, I hope that the victims of this abuse receive appropriate recompense.
This is about trust.
A government agency SELLING personal information about individuals, violating their privacy and violating the law, is a horrible exploitation.
We can't trust the DOT with our personal information, plain and simple.
Given this alleged abuse, are you prepared to trust the government with your personal medical information?
Do you think that the Obama socialist medical bureaucracy, the one the Democrats are crafting, would hesitate to sell your private records if it meant hauling in some money?
...[B]y law, [DOT spokeswoman Peg Schmitt] said, certain groups can request information from DOT for limited purposes, which include writing and renewing insurance policies, billing and paying of insurance claims, vehicle safety recall notifications and law enforcement.
Drivers can opt out of data requests involving 10 or more records by filing a form with DOT, Schmitt said.
Obviously, selling information to Shadowsoft and PublicData wouldn't fall within the limited purposes deemed acceptable for requesting information from the DOT.
From the PublicData website:
Governments (federal, state, local) within the US generally remain opposed to the idea of PublicData.com and look for ways to discourage general public access to Public Records (simply put, governments view this as a loss of their power and control). It is common for opportunistic politicians or bureaucrats to jump onto manufactured stories of a criminal element using information from PublicData.com to perpetrate a crime. These "keepers of the public trust" are motivated by their own quest for power by duping the public into demanding that access to Public Records be restricted. Now to be sure, criminals have used PublicData.com but we work very aggressively with law enforcement to help assure conviction.
We remain dedicated to the idea that all citizens of our free society should have access to all of the records that government collects (except information critical to national security and information involved in ongoing criminal investigation). Likewise we will continue to lead the industry in "low cost" real-time access to Public Records. We will continue to add to the number of database offerings while providing better performance and more value. PublicData.com purchases all of its data from various government entities (directly and indirectly) and is in no way subsidized by any government.
Does this make sense?
"Governments (federal, state, local) within the US generally remain opposed to the idea of PublicData.com and look for ways to discourage general public access to Public Records."
"PublicData.com purchases all of its data from various government entities (directly and indirectly) and is in no way subsidized by any government."
The government opposes PublicData but the government is selling information to PublicData.
So, here we have an alleged instance of the government, the DOT, violating the privacy of citizens and profiting from it.
If the allegations are true, are all the Leftists, including Russ "I voted against the Patriot Act" Feingold, going to line up and condemn this abuse by the government?
The Leftists whined incessantly about the Bush administration's efforts to thwart terrorism and save lives. They complained about civil rights being violated.
Are these same people going to whine about the Wisconsin DOT violating the privacy of individuals to make some money?
Preventing another 9/11 and selling personal information to sleazy Internet public search sites are in completely different leagues.
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