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How far back are you willing to look? "The Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) was a bill passed by the United States Congress in 1988 ... to prevent what it re
by medmunds 10y ago
How far back are you willing to look? "The Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) was a bill passed by the United States Congress in 1988 ... to prevent what it refers to as "wrongful disclosure of video tape rental or sale records..." Congress passed the VPPA after Robert Bork's video rental history was published during his Supreme Court nomination." [1]
I thought there were also some U.S. privacy laws around library records, but can't locate a clear reference just now.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act
- jessaustin 10y agoThe rental records of several specific adult video places in the DC area were probably foremost in the minds of that bill's sponsors. Going forward, they realized they would need to be more circumspect, and internet allowed them to pretend that they were. (Of course, they can't hide their peccadilloes from the state intelligence apparatus but most of them are wholly owned by that entity for other, actually-evil reasons anyway.) Kathleen Kane in Pennsylvania has claimed that her current troubles stem from a similar motivation on the part of her disgruntled employees.
- Bartweiss 10y agoInteresting, thanks. 1988 is a while back, but it's far more relevant than the people citing the Fourth Amendment! That's actually a pretty solid win for privacy, although it doesn't alleviate my sense that the government stance is "we can read everything as long as we don't tell anyone about it". The last I heard about library records was the Patriot Act opening them to government investigation, but things may have changed since them. Still, this one is news to me, I appreciate it.