ABSTRACT
From time to time, politicians and privacy advocates make a public demonstration of proving just how easy it is to gather personal information about private citizens using the Internet. For example, during his 2000 campaign for the U.S. Senate, Democratic candidate Ed Bernstein of Nevada convened a news conference to announce that if elected, he would be an advocate for privacy rights and support federal legislation making it illegal to buy or sell social security numbers. He offered a 17-page report detailing property he owned, former addresses and the names and phone numbers of his neighbors, all culled from the Internet.1
