[biztech-discussion] Re: Offshoring -- Privacy Issues

  • From: Dan McCrory <writingbiz@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: biztech-discussion@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 11:30:36 -0700 (PDT)

In response to this missive, I agree. As a CWA local
president involved in legislative matters, I know we
have been hammering away at these issues. With our
clout in various state legislatures, our elected
officials are listening. 

However, it's not just a privacy issue. We're sending
data overseas that includes credit numbers, social
security numbers, etc., that make identity theft not
only an opportunity, but a temptation. 

There's also the buzzwords that the current
administration always employ: issues of "national
security," "unpatriotic" movement of American work and
jobs to foreign shores...

Make no mistake - these actions are gutting the middle
class and undermining the infrastructure of our
country. How soon before we're a third world nation?


Bruce Hartford <bruceh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> At 05:06 AM 7/7/04 -0700, Nancy Mulvany wrote:
> 
> >However, we no longer feel that this particular
> issue deserves to 
> >standalone with a white paper, FAQ, etc. Personally
> I am very concerned, 
> >alarmed, and discouraged by the amount of personal
> information that is sent 
> >outside the United States to countries that are
> beyond the legal reach of 
> >our privacy protection laws. However, I do not see
> this as a "writer's issue."
> 
> I agree it is a citizen's issue rather than a
> writer-specific issue. For
> that matter, government support and usage of
> offshoring is also a "general"
> rather than a writer-specific issue. It seems to me
> that offshoring as an
> issue is so broad, and the writer-specific
> comonponent of it is so tiny in
> economic terms (though, of course, not in its affect
> on our members), that
> *any* effective campaign is going to have to be on
> the general rather than
> the specific. And it will have to be fought in
> alliance and cooperation
> with other unions and organizations, rather than
> independently by us on
> writer-specific grounds. 
> 
> I believe that right now we (the broad general "we")
> are all caught up in
> an economic-ideologic offshoring tidal wave. The
> "offshoring is good for
> you" mantra has been accepted and is being repeated
> everywhere, even by
> people who are losing their jobs. It's like a form
> of mass hysteria, a
> mental stampede as it were. But in order to rein in
> offshoring (to say
> nothing of stopping it), we first have to build a
> broad popular consensus
> that offshoring is NOT good for everyone, and is NOT
> the greatest thing
> since sliced bread (which I also don't like). So
> before we can do anything
> else, we *first* have to get our members, and our
> target constituency, and
> the public at large to begin questioning the
> so-called benefits of
> offshoring. The way to do that is to attack
> offshoring at its two most
> vulnerable points--government using our tax dollars
> to offshore jobs and
> data security. 
> 
> Once folks begin to question those two limited
> aspects of offshoring it
> then become possible to raise other less obvious
> problems with offshoring. 
> 
> In terms of reining in this mad rush to offshore
> everything, I believe that
> our only hope is to *first* win legislation
> restricting offshoring of
> personal data and limiting offshoring of government
> work paid for with our
> tax dollars, and *then* expand that legislation to
> other areas. 
> 
> So, I do believe that focusing on these two spearate
> issues, and developing
> materials on them, it needed. I think it would be
> much better to keep these
> two issues separate as a kind of one-two punch than
> to try merging them
> together. 
> 
>                                                                               
> --bruce
> 
> 
> 
> 
> >I think it may make more sense to fold some of the
> material I have gathered 
> >in Bruce Hartford's drafts for the "Stop Government
> Support for Offshoring 
> >Our Jobs" campaign.
> >
> >What do you think about this? Have we lost our
> focus? Or, would it best to 
> >work with Bruce?
> >
> >-nancy
> >
> >Nancy Mulvany 
> 
> 
> 


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