Look who’s selling your voting records

[n2doc]

By Moyers & Company
Thursday, March 13, 2014

Investigative journalist Julia Angwin, author of the new book Dragnet Nation, speaks to Bill in this clip about the ways in which the government and the private sector are compiling a personal profile of you. Did you know, for instance, that your voting records are being sold to commercial data brokers?

http://vimeo.com/88901647
Through her research, Angwin discovered that over 200 data brokers had information on her, in one of the “least transparent” industries in America. Of those brokers, about a dozen would let her view her personal information (and when she did, she found some major inaccuracies, such as the names of previous employers) and less than half allowed her to opt out. Some sites even required her to submit her driver’s license number, social security information or pay a fee to complete the opt-out process.

“All kinds of companies are collecting my data. In the data broker business, there are people who sell my name and address and actual voting records and all that. Those people, there are the big ones who compile it all on the backend, like Acxiom and InfoGroup; then there are the ones you look for online with whoever’s Googled your stuff. You might see them show up, they’re selling your data — they are Spokeo, Intelius and all of those lookup sites. And they do a very big business in selling your data. And unfortunately, your data sells pretty cheap.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/13/look-whos-selling-your-voting-records/

[jsr]

1. Recommend

[Laffy Kat]

2. Shit. nt

[colsohlibgal]

3. It's Unsettling

You go to a site and look over a product, then you go to another unrelated site and see a panel ad for the exact same product.

Then there is my snail mail. I subscribe to a few egghead magazines, a few women's magazines, and a few left leaning political magazines - and that ensures a steady stream of mail from other similar magazines wanting me to subscribe to them. It never ends.

"1984" in 2014, we're living it.

[progressoid]

4. Jebus H Christ.

[KT2000]

5. Voting Records show

whether or not a person voted in any given election, not who anyone voted for. Campaigns use them for door- belling lists too. A precinct that is heavily one party or the other will door-belled but only the people who are shown to have voted.

I suppose these commercial uses might assign a person's political persuasion in the same way.

[riqster]

9. They can also show party affiliation.

[No Vested Interest]

10. Depending on the state, voting records may show which party

he voter is registered to, and/or which party ballot was requested in a primary election.

[glinda]

23. Could be used to gerrymander, etc.....

[No Vested Interest]

25. One could quite sure that voting records, and patterns,

are used in gerrymandering.

[Zorra]

6. Capitalism sure does breed a whole lot of scumbags. nt

[fascisthunter]

7. Extremely Fascist

And what do you think the corporate sector wants with such information? Really sick country this has become.

[Skidmore]

8. This stuff has been done for years.

This stuff is why I don't have quite the angst over the NSA crap. Most of a person's information is out there already and can be gotten for a small fee. The notion of privacy and identity is ass backwards.

[mountain grammy]

11. And with online buying, it's at a whole new level..

Yes, the idea of privacy is a joke.

[bullsnarfle]

12. But-but-but-

"Bob" has been beating up his wife and abusing his kids for years, nothing new about that...

Oh, well since there is nothing new about it, that certainly makes it ok, then.

[Skidmore]

14. I don't believe that I said it was ok.

I said it has been happening for a long time.

[ctsnowman]

13. So that's

why I don't get call backs.

Going to have to cancel my Nation subscription. This is what happens when everything is about $.

[Brigid]

18. Call backs?

Do you mean about jobs or something like that? That is scary.

[ctsnowman]

19. Yup.

Many companies already look at your FB posts etc. This will only get worse. The Koch bros will make sure they don't hire any commie libs etc.

[marions ghost]

20. Definitely

This worries me a lot. We are profiled extensively and assumptions are made...

[Brigid]

21. I don't even have a FB account.

When I finish school by the end of this year or early next year, I will be curious what kind of reaction I will get from prospective employers when I tell them that.

[L0oniX]

15. In other words your vote is public ...no need for those voting booths anymore.

Of course they can look up your voter registration and go figure anyway. Hey ...do we need to wear cloths any more? It seems we are all naked to the world. They can have free access to my inner bowl toilet cam!

[bluestate10]

26. The article didn't say what you opined. I have never had a case where my vote was known.

The only items that are known have been my address, party affiliation and that I showed up to take a ballot.

[zeemike]

16. What part of total informational awareness did we not understand?

[marions ghost]

22. Am reading this book

...she believes we should identify all the areas of our lives that we wish to protect from scrutiny--for example: medical data, children's data, financial data, lifestyle data, political action data--and then work specifically for new legal protections of it. Right now we all are wide open for abuse in a way that most people would find disturbing. And it's just not right--as somebody on the rawstory site said--"they should be paying us to use our data..."

This is an excellent book for anyone who really doesn't know the extent of the problems. A very readable overview. The writer investigated her own situation.

[Blue_Tires]

24. kicked