October 10, 2008 - 9:37 A.M. Rambam: Privacy could kill democracy Forget privacy, open access to information is power, and the government doesn't want you to have it, says Steve Rambam, president of the Pallorium investigative agency and PallTech, an investigative database service that has some a 25 billion records individuals and businesses. "Two hundred years ago the second amendment was passed because you needed a gun to protect yourself. Now you need information to keep things balanced," Rambam says. He believes� that the government is now trying to tip that balance of power in its favor. And privacy is the perfect pretext for regaining control over public information byclosing down access to it. While you might worry about how much personal information about you is available online, Rambam says that overall, open access to information is a good thing. The more nefarious trend, he says, is how the government is progressively closing its doors to openness and transparency of its data - a turn of events that's also bad for his business. "The scary thing to me is not that information is open but that the government is trying to use every pretext and every trick to hide information from its citizens," he says.� He points to two developments as evidence: The reclassification of data that's been in the public domain for decades and the use of private contractors to spy on American citizens so that information gathered from polygraphs and background investigations isn't accessible to Americans under the Freedom of Information Act. "In the way that there are military contractors in Iraq there are now investigative contractors inside the United States. This is a fairly sinister development," he says. Data aggregators and brokers are responding accordingly. "It is a certainty that any public record is also now in public and private databases because everyone, including my company, is fearful that all of these various government [entitities] that don't want themselves open to scrutiny are ultimately going to close all of the records." For more of Rambam's views, see the [8]Computerworld Q&A. What People Are Saying [14]Add new comment Rate this Rated -1 95 Votes [15]Steve Rombom Submitted by [16]AJ Weberman on October 11, 2008 - 2:34 P.M. This guy is a homosexual predator, convicted terrorist, and someone who makes things up like Domino's sells their customer lists to the FBI. Rombom was arrested for impersonating and FBI Agent. [17]Reply | [18]Report this comment Rate this Rated +1 1 Vote [19]Shame on Computerworld Submitted by Anonymous on October 16, 2008 - 4:00 A.M. It is disappointing that Computerworld allows such a sick post to detract from an important issue. In case you're unaware, Alan Jules Weberman (A.J. Weberman) was put in prison by Steven Rambam for laundering money connected to the sale of ONE TON of drugs. His partner, Mordechai Levy (Mark Levey), also went to prison, for shooting at Rambam. If you Google Weberman, you will see that he is nuts. He is the author of Kennedy conspiracy theories that even the other conspiracy nuts laugh at, he was beaten up by Bob Dylan after constantly harassing Dylan and stealing his garbage (Weberman believed that Dylan was sending him secret messages in his garbage) and he is the webmaster of "Acid Trip". He also got busted 1-2 years ago for smacking around his wife. Unless you're checking on UFO flight schedules or good wife-beating techniques, Weberman should not be your source for information. Computerworld should remove his sad and slanderous post. Oh yeah, speaking of slander, in 2002 Steven Rambam got a $1 Million slander judgment against Weberman and his buddies (Brooklyn Eagle, front page, March 27, 2002) and Computerworld's blog is now hosting the same garbage. [20]Reply | [21]Report this comment Rate this Rated +1 45 Votes [22]Accusations are easy. Cite your sources. Submitted by [23]Krell on October 13, 2008 - 1:27 P.M. It's easy to accuse people of anything and everything. But accusing someone doesn't make it true. Can you prove any of it? Cite your sources for these accusations. What proof do you have that the things you've said are true? Court case numbers? Trial transcripts? Newspaper accounts? Until you can prove it, no one should believe you. [24]Reply | [25]Report this comment Rate this Rated +1 115 Votes [26]democracy wins Submitted by [27]Wright on October 10, 2008 - 5:11 P.M. In the age of information, the rich, the powerful and the authoritative [28]surprisingly find that they can keep no secrets. Those people therefore become less powerful, and average people become (relatively) more powerful. Democracy wins. --Ben [29]http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2007/12/people-in-authority-somet imes-abuse.html [30]Reply | [31]Report this comment Rate this Rated +1 121 Votes [32]When citizens protect their assets, its called "privacy," but... Submitted by [33]Beartrack on October 10, 2008 - 4:15 P.M. When citizens protect their assets, its called "privacy." When the government conceals the peoples' assets - the assets we pay for with our tax dollars - it is called "secrecy." It is important to note the distinction between privacy and secrecy in this context. Citizens' privacy = good. Government secrecy = bad. [34]Reply | [35]Report this comment Related Posts [36]Spies, lies, and private eyes [37]Chrome: Google's biggest threat to your privacy [38]Privacy is dead [39]Facebook and privacy, milk and lemons, cats and dogs... 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