It was 70 degrees in Washington, DC, during the first week of December, and my hotel was a block or so from the White House. So the day before the PMA Law conference began, I walked over to have a look.
This wasn’t my first time seeing the White House, but it felt especially poignant coming on the cusp of Christmas and in the throes of war. Tourists clustered around; business folks strolled casually by. A Tibetan monk banged a drum across the street, settled cross-legged on the sidewalk like a daily fixture protesting for the freedom of his country. There were no tours, of course (security reasons), but it felt good to stand in the sunshine and see the White House looking fine.
I walked a lot that afternoon, reassured by American flags draped on everything from the Archives Building to vendor carts. It was a fitting complement to the flags near my home, hung high on barns with the yard lights trained on them at night.
That mood segued to talk of privacy at the conference, especially when keynote speaker J. Howard Beales talked frankly about how the Federal Trade Commission will watch marketers carefully to protect consumers from everything from identity theft to annoying telemarketing calls.
An economist by training, Beales is on his second stint at the FTC (“I was going to retire to the Riviera, but I could never get that last gamepiece,” he quipped to the crowd). He was candid about the new balance all Americans have struck between privacy and security.
“Sept. 11 shows that privacy can’t be an absolute right,” he said. We’ll sacrifice some personal privacy for security. Most of us don’t mind being scrutinized at the airport, as long as everyone else is carefully checked, too. When the gate agent asks anyone with an “S” on his boarding pass to step out of line, we assume “S” stands for security. We’re glad the “S” isn’t us, but we’re not incensed that there’s an “S” at all. Random checks feel like an inconvenience, not an infringement.
Ironically enough, the Congressional hearing on military tribunals began the day after the conference ended. Talk about balancing privacy and security. It makes the debate over selling e-mail addresses seem absurdly trivial.
It’s not trivial for marketers, of course, especially since the FTC promises to go after marketers who misuse consumers’ private information, online or off. The FTC also has its sights on companies and Web sites which misrepresent the security measures they take to protect consumer info. “Data security is fundamental to privacy,” Beales told the conference.
The balancing act there isn’t between privacy and security (to give up a little privacy for added security). It’s between security and access, since marketers who collect consumer data need to give consumers access to their own. The trick is not giving access to hackers or thieves.
I went back to the White House after dinner that night to see the Christmas lights and eavesdrop on other tourists. One fellow with a flashy haircut asked a guard if the President flies the flag when he’s in residence, like his father does in Kennebunkport, ME. He brought the answer back to his buddies (a mix of Americans and foreigners, apparently). A few minutes later, two women passed them, doing a little eavesdropping of their own. “I don’t think they get to say ‘Ugly American’ here,” one said to the other in disgust.
Oh yes, I thought, this is exactly the right place to say it. From the Tibetan monk to the Kennebunkport cowboy, this is the place where you get to say what you think. This is the center of America.
You just think twice about who it might hurt before you say it.
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