When we worry about who might be spy-ing on our private lives, we usually think about the Feds. But the private sector outdoes the government every time. It's Linda Tripp, not the FBI, who's facing charges under Maryland's laws against secret telephone taping. It's our banks, not the IRS, that pass our private financial data to telemarketing firms. To call this "betrayal of trust" would be hopelessly out of date. Betrayal was rethought years ago, and emerged as a viable business model for the Information Age. Consumer activists are pressing Congress for better privacy laws without much result so far. The legislators lean toward letting business people track our financial habits virtually at will. As an example of what's going on, consider U.S. Bancorp, which was recently sued for deceptive practices by the state of Minnesota. According to the lawsuit, the bank supplied a telemarketer called MemberWorks with sensitive customer data such as names, phone numbers, bank-account and credit-card numbers, Social Security numbers, account balances and credit limits.
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