PRIVACY: Striking Back At the Super Snoops

To show how precious little privacy Americans have, Hanna Weston, an economics instructor at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, set out to learn everything she could about the personal affairs of her friend, State Senator Minnette Doderer. The Johnson County auditor's files disclosed that her house was valued at $47,110 and that her property taxes were $1,252.94 a year. An official at an Iowa City bank had no qualms about telling Weston that a $500 check on Doderer's account would clear, meaning that she had a balance of at least that much.

Just as readily, an employee at Blue Cross-Blue Shield looked up Doderer's file—with the help of her Social Security number, which Weston obtained from county voting rolls—and reported that she had not filed a claim in the past 18 months. From a marriage certificate, Weston discovered that Doderer had been married only once; from birth certificates, that she was a housewife when her children were born, in 1948 and 1951. Motor vehicle records showed that she had used a $2,000 loan from the Hawkeye State Bank to buy her 1976 Plymouth Valiant and also revealed that she is 54, blonde, blue-eyed 5 ft 6 in and 1401bs.

Weston's search, which took only three hours, illustrates the variety of information about a typical American that is readily available to any snoop. "And I am only an amateur," says Weston. If she had been a professional investigator she could have tapped the files of banks, credit bureaus, insurance companies and Government agencies even more extensively—and sometimes illegally —to learn details about the Doderer family's investments, debts, shopping patterns, charities, hobbies, social life medical history, drinking habits and morals (see box).

This week a seven-member federal commission that has studied the invasion of privacy for nearly two years will issue a 654-page report showing that the problem is far worse than most people think. The report touches on the threat to privacy that stems from Government gumshoes but concentrates chiefly on the danger posed by private firms, most of which operate with no restrictions on the information they collect and the way in which they use it. Says Commission Chairman David Linowes, a University of Illinois political economist:* "We are an information-spoiled society. It's been so easy to collect that we just keep on collecting. Tens of millions of names are being pushed around from one organization to another for whatever purposes they want them, and we don't know any thing about it."