how is YOUR candidate on privacy issues? Caps 2?

[grasswire]

I consider the amassing of personal data and its availability to the government one of the largest threats to our future. The issue will definitely affect my support of a candidate.

What's Dean's position on privacy issues?

Kucinich?

Kerry?

Anyone know?

[grasswire]

1. gee

I guess this is an issue no candidate is discussing. Even though Ashcan is out on a national tour promoting repression.

[kayell]

2. Kucinich

has this on his website under Civil Liberties http://www.kucinich.net/issues/issue_civilliberties.htm

"We cannot justify widespread wiretaps and Internet surveillance without judicial supervision, let alone with it. We cannot justify secret searches without a warrant. We cannot justify giving the Attorney General the ability to designate domestic terror groups. We cannot justify giving the FBI total access to any type of data that may exist in any system anywhere such as medical records and financial records.

We cannot justify giving the CIA the ability to target people in this country for intelligence surveillance. We cannot justify a government that takes from the people our right to privacy and then assumes for its own operations a right to total secrecy."

On his top 10 issues page
http://www.kucinich.net/issues/issue_10key.htm
<4> Repeal of the "Patriot Act"
The "Patriot Act" is not what American patriots have fought and died for. To allow our Bill of Rights to be nullified without judicial supervision invites tyranny. The Attorney General has been handed unfettered power to wiretap, search, jail, and invade our most sacred right to privacy. The government must not be allowed, without probable cause or warrant, to snoop on our communications, medical records, library records, and student records.

<5> Right-to-Choose, Privacy, and Civil Rights
In a Kucinich administration, a woman’s right-to-choose will be protected as essential to personal privacy and gender equality. Only those who agree to uphold Roe v. Wade will be nominated for the Supreme Court. Civil rights (and voting rights) enforcement will be intensified. Lesbians and gays will be afforded complete equality throughout society. Affirmative action will be maintained as a tool for racial and gender equality. Drug policy will emphasize treatment over criminalization, and not a rampaging war that erodes Constitutional freedoms, privacy, and law enforcement resources. An end to capital punishment will be sought.

Kucinich is also a member of the Privacy Caucus, which I can't find much about.

[kayell]

3. More from Kucinich

http://www.denniskucinich.us/article.php?story=20030619160620963
There is nothing patriotic about the loss of our civil liberties
Thursday, June 19 2003 04:06 PM PDT

The USA Patriot Act represents an attack on the Bill of Rights. Over 100 communities have expressed opposition to the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act permits the government to punish people for innocent associations and constitutionally protected free speech. It has permitted people to be held in jail without charges. The government now monitors conversations between detainees and their lawyers. It permits widespread wiretapping, searches without warrants, and enables the government to get information concerning what people read, what they watch, their financial transactions, and personal health information. As a Congressman, I led the fight against the Patriot Act in Congress and will also lead the efforts against Patriot Act 2 which would permit even more surveillance, more spying, and the cover-up of information about environmental problems caused by corporations. It would even allow for sampling and indexing of genetic information of innocent Americans without a court order! As president, I will lead the effort to repeal the Patriot Act. There is nothing patriotic about the loss of our civil liberties. I applaud the efforts of all those organizations who have joined to fight it.