Briefs

By Debra Rappaport Rosen, 01/03/2005, TechCentralStation.com

When the Pentagon in 2002 announced a plan to employ powerful, computerized searches of public data to discern an individual's potential ties to terror, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stood on principle and resisted what it considered a governmental invasion of individual privacy. The organization echoed its objection earlier this year when it pulled out of a federally sponsored grant program that required it to identify any potential links between its affiliates and terror groups.

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What a shock, then, that last month the ACLU discarded any pretense of consistency and respect for their donors' right to privacy with regard to their fundraising efforts. As reported by the New York Times, the organization has embarked on an ambitious data mining program, has denigrated dissenters within its ranks as "whistle-punks," and has generally embraced a disturbing hypocrisy that threatens to undermine the very values it purports to defend.

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But the Times exposed the fickleness of this belief in its report that the ACLU had hired a marketing firm to employ software called Prospect Explorer to collect a wide range of information about its donors. This stunning turn of events raises a seemingly straightforward question: Is it better to use information uncovered by data mining to ensure the security of our nation or to increase the amount of dollars an organization can fundraise?

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