It's not just the surveillance aspects of Patriot Act that has privacy advocates worried — but the commercial collection and dissemination of economic, medical and personal information. NOW's guest Bob Barr is especially worried about the large aggregators of personal data make Americans increasingly vulnerable. He stated recently, "personal privacy, as we have known, understood, and applied it for years, is on life support."

Respond to more from Bob Barr in NOW's Quote of the Week

	According to many analysts, the speed, small size and international nature of information collection can be a danger disguised as a blessing. For example, a data consolidator might enable someone to find out if a felon is living on their block — but also allow someone with less wholesome motives gain crucial personal information about your finances. Should potential employers be able to delve into your medical history? There are many such tough questions. WIRED magazine reports this week on ZabaSearch, a personal data search engine which returns a wealth of data, some free and some for a fee, which may or may not be correct. WIRED poses the tricky question "Is ZabaSearch an invasion of privacy?" And those are just the potential legal uses of your personal information. Both FORTUNE and THE WALL STREET JOURNAL have tallied up recent breaches of company data (see the table below). According to the The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit group in San Diego "some four million people's identities have been compromised since mid-February alone." The 2004 FBI and the Computer Crime and Security Survey found that while cybercrime rates are going down, 40% of all companies confronted an attempted information theft each year. Selected incidents of personal-information theft or loss disclosed in 2005 Company # of people affected Type of data ChoicePoint 145,000* Names, addresses, Social Security numbers DSW Shoe Warehouse 1.4 million Credit-, debit-card and driver's-license numbers LexisNexis 310,000 Social Security and driver's-license numbers Bank of America 1.2 million Social Security numbers Time Warner 600,000 Social Security numbers, employee information San Jose Medical Group 185,000 Patient records Polo Ralph Lauren 180,000 Credit card numbers Ameritrade 200,000 Backup tape containing personal information *Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department estimates this number could be in the millions. Figures from the FORTUNE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Additional Information The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse Electronic Frontier Foundation PBS FRONTLINE, "Hackers" Patient Privacy Resources Additional sources: "Librarians set aside `shhh' to speak out for privacy Patriot Act: Government access to data on library users criticized by the normally quiet types," Gail Gibson, THE BALTIMORE SUN, June 24, 2004; "The Great Date Heist Why can't corporations keep their customers' personal data secure? Inside the world of identity theft," Daniel Roth, Stephanie Mehta, Julia Boorstin, Joan Levinstein, FORTUNE, 16 May 2005; "Limiting the Patriot Act," THE TENNESSEAN, October 1, 2004; "Improving the Patriot Act," CHICAGO TRIBUNE, April 12, 2005