Mike Rogers Is Now Opportunistically Concerned About The Privacy Of Americans

from the both-sides-of-mouth-completely-operational dept

Mike Rogers, who once famously stated that no privacy violations occur if no one finds out their privacy has been violated, is now very concerned about Americans' privacy. Of course, this is because he's in an adversarial role, rather than playing defense.

As we're all aware, the much-anticipated and highly-touted national healthcare website made its very shaky debut recently. Immediately inundated by millions of Americans looking for a better deal on healthcare, the website performed with all the reliability of a dollar store electronic device, falling completely apart at the slightest touch.

Much has been made about the roll out and subsequent failure of a website that was supposed to be the crowning jewel of the Affordable Care Act. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was called before a Congressional hearing to field questions and complaints from legislators who wanted clarification on what went wrong and, more importantly, whom to direct their irritated constituents towards.

Mike Rogers was on hand and delivered a longish rant/question about the live roll out of untested code. While there are some good points in his query/beration (i.e., hot fixes are insecure, the site is a failure), Rogers suddenly felt compelled to defend something he's taken a laissez faire approach to in recent months: the privacy of Americans.

Rogers, who questioned Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during a hearing last week, has taken issue with concerns about the safety of Americans' healthcare information.

"What was really shocking to me is even by their own words, they admitted that there was a high degree of risk when they offered the website to go public, they never told anybody about that. They said that they think the risk was acceptable. But their information wasn't at risk, American people's information was at risk," he said.
Rogers is upset that all the personal information people willingly submitted to a barely functioning government website might be exposed or put at risk by the agency's continual code fixes, almost all of which goes untested for security flaws before being rolled out.

So, now Rogers is worried about possible privacy issues. He doesn't want to protect Americans' data from government intelligence agencies, but he wants to make sure it doesn't fall into the hands of other Americans or foreigners who might exploit the personal or financial data. Kudos for that I guess, but its not as if his favored intelligence community has been extra careful with what it's collected.

Sure, it may be locked down tight in occasionally not-on-fire servers in Utah, but it's hardly secure. Any number of American analysts have access to that data, with little more than some forced-into-practice minimization procedures and its defenders' assurances that NSA employees are patriotic, virtuous Americans guarding it from abuse.

Not only that, but what the agency collects is far more inclusive than what Americans are volunteering to the government site. Let's not forget that the TSA is already probing into Americans' personal and financial data just to determine whether or not they can travel within the country with a minimum of security molestation. So, it's not as if this information isn't already in the hands of several government agencies already -- with all the risks that entails.

But to claim this is a problem but not the NSA's massive data collections is a bit rich. That information has been abused in the past and, worse, it's been freely shared with other countries in unminimized form. Protecting the privacy of Americans isn't something you get to do part time, Rep. Rogers, but I suppose if no one finds out their personal data has been leaked all over the net by a faulty .gov website, then it's not really a problem, is it?

Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: healthcare.gov, mike rogers, privacy


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Adam V, 5 Nov 2013 @ 9:13am

    Well, duh

    Insecure services mean *other people* could spy on Americans. The NSA already has ways of getting our data - he doesn't want to add any new ways for other countries to get in.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2013 @ 9:16am

      Re: Well, duh

      which is funny, because they're already in.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Me, 5 Nov 2013 @ 9:18am

      Re: Well, duh

      "The NSA already has ways of getting our data - he doesn't want to add any new ways for other countries to get in."
      ______________________________

      The NSA's "ways" of getting in are exactly the ways other countries and adversaries are going to get in. That's the entire problem with the NSA's intentional weakening of security systems, creation and accumulation of malware, standards subversion and internal lack of controls.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      That One Guy (profile), 5 Nov 2013 @ 2:51pm

      Re: Well, duh

      They don't need to, the NSA appears to have no problem handing out the information themselves.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2013 @ 9:20am

    "It's not invading privacy when we do it!"

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2013 @ 9:28am

    Wonder why he told us this, using "Mike Rogers" circular logic (tm)

    Rogers logic on
    - "your privacy is not at risk whatsoever if no one tells you that it can be breached"

    Jeez I was better off! My privacy was guaranteed!!
    so mad now.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Anonymous Howard (profile), 6 Nov 2013 @ 3:26am

      Re:

      He's worried because his medical records and private info is there too to take.

      If he has nothing to hide, he shouldn't be afraid, right?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2013 @ 10:01am

    The government has setup a huge data collection bank. It's a big target that hackers will get into. Not if, just when. It's not to interesting yet, not enough in it. Wait till it grows.

    If there are these many problems with just getting it to work, how much effort do you think was put into making it secure?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2013 @ 10:10am

    Double Standard

    it's the same privacy double standard that places the third party doctrine along sides the likes of HIPPA. No matter who you give it to, medical info is treated should be treated as sacrosanct. But apparently no reasonable person would ever expect any other personal information to be treated with similar respect.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2013 @ 10:47am

    Is anyone listening to anything Mike Rogers says anymore? Really. After the level of stupidity that came out of his mouth last week why would anyone listen to anything else he has to say afterwards and take it seriously?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jerrymiah, 5 Nov 2013 @ 1:05pm

    Mike Rogers must be ingurgitating all the shit he has let out during the day to be so senseless. He sure does not care about the american people. He should just shut the fuck up and let decent members of congress and senators write new NSA laws to replace the total fiasco that has been taking plase over the last few decades.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2013 @ 1:10pm

    so, you give personal information willingly and the fear is it will fall into the wrong hands. you do your best to keep personal information, mail, messages, texts and locality secret and Rogers (and his pals) is on it like a tick on a dog, breaking any and all that gets in the way and it's alright? is he fucking mad or just think we are?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Spaceman Spiff (profile), 5 Nov 2013 @ 1:14pm

    If only...

    If only there was a law against blazing hypocrisy! If there were, Rogers would be doing life in durance vile!

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.