Georgia State House Representative Ed Setzler spoke to Madison Forum members at the regular breakfast meeting Saturday, February 17, 2007. His topics were Biological Privacy and School Choice, two issues currently being debated at the current Georgia Legislative Session.
He congratulated the Madison Forum members for their interest in issues, and encouraged members to consider what forums like this can do by moving from being grassroots forums to being prevailing organizations that can prevail on public policy – not just discuss issues, and being right on issues, but can cross from being great grassroots organizations to being prevailing organizations. He said that if grassroots can’t raise a million dollars for a Congressional candidate, we will never elect grassroots people to Congress who will be sensitive to issues that concern voters.
Mr. Setzler said he first became aware of the possible consequences of biological profiling when he took his family to Disney World and was asked for his fingerprint in order to enter the park. When he questioned it, he was told it was a security thing in case they lost their tickets. He protested, and was told all he had to do was sign the ticket and show ID.
He said the incident made him wonder what is being done with indelible biometric information, and what kinds of privacy intrusions are we submitting ourselves to in the course of our everyday lives. At the last legislative session, House Resolution 1558 initiated a study committee to focus on the issue of biological privacy dealing with all forms of tracking from DNA, to fingerprints, to personal tracking technologies, and all other means of tracking individuals and maintaining indelible information.
Mr. Setzler framed some of the issues that were being looked at in House Bill 276, the Biological Information Protection Act. For years people have been photographed and fingerprinted, but there has been no integration of that information so that a person could be tracked through daily life. But when digital and other technologies, along with an interest in tracking people, come together, the capabilities go from rudimentary and disjointed to integrated and powerful.
It raises the question of what is an appropriate level of intrusion by government.
Part of the intention of the bill is disclosure. If information is being collected and maintained on a person, that person should know about it, excluding signatures and non-digital photographs. He said the state government is attempting to get ahead of technologies, from a governmental standpoint, and outline obligations of businesses and how they may use this information, and what disclosure and fair practices should be in play in using these technologies.
Mr. Setzler said the next issue taken up was genetic exceptionalism. We have the ability to look at the human genetic code. There are tremendous incentives for businesses and, potentially, government entities to use that for commercial purposes. Georgia law prohibits the use of genetic screening for the purposes of health insurance or property casualty insurance. But, with pre-natal testing so available, should there be some expectation of privacy with respect to indelible, uncontrollable genetic traits that ought not be known and ought not be leveraged for economic advantage. That’s why the insurance industry is regulated. The legislature looks at what is the appropriate level of regulation. They want to minimize regulation and make sure the industry is controlled in an adequate way.
Case law outlines what reasonable search is and what it is not, so given the technological advances, is it a reasonable expectation that someone shouldn’t have to submit to a 4th Amendment search to go to the grocery store, open a bank account, get employment. Should there be a basic expectation of citizens to practical obscurity. The House Bill says that a bank can’t require a biometric search of people who have an account there. It is just based on the principle of not having to submit to 4th Amendment searches to go through the course of daily life.
Mr. Setzler briefly discussed Lt. Governor Cagle’s School Choice bill and the advantages that will come to Georgia’s students by expanding the kinds and number of entities allowed to certify Charter Schools.