Through the mining of public records and the purchase of credit reporting data, private-sector companies are amassing troves of personal information on citizens for the government. Serious questions exist involving citizen access to profiles, their accuracy and the potential for misuse of personal information.

Through the mining of public records and the purchase of credit reporting data, private-sector companies are amassing troves of personal information on citizens for the government, ... Serious questions exist involving citizen access to profiles, their accuracy and the potential for misuse of personal information.

The 'private sector' of the economy is, in fact, the voluntary sector; and the 'public sector' is, in fact, the coercive sector.

Companies used to bury this stuff.

When the private does well, there's revenue for the public sector.

The lawsuits are great. But a related difficulty here is that it's too easy to get telephone records.