Case Raises Sticky Questions About Computer Privacy

September 16, 1993|By JOHN M. MORAN; Courant Staff Writer

Information was scarce in the weeks after David Gelernter, a Yale University computer scientist, was seriously injured by a mail-bomb in his campus office.

Investigators searching for the bomber, a man suspected of similar attacks on researchers across the country, released few details. Gelernter pointedly refused to grant news interviews.

So when the hospital finally released him last month, Gelernter decided to update friends and colleagues on his condition. He did so by sending a computer message in which he discussed his injuries and his plans to return to work.

"All in all, I am the luckiest man alive (emphasis on alive). Surviving the explosion was evidently a pretty neat trick on my part, and I could have been hurt much worse," Gelernter wrote.

That message -- and the way it was later handled -- has sparked a national controversy among the growing numbers of journalists who use computers and computer networks as research tools.

Almost immediately after Gelernter sent his electronic message, copies began circulating to ever wider circles of interested people until it eventually reached the Internet -- the granddaddy of all computer networks that links millions of users across the world.

That presumably is where The Washington Post discovered it. The Post used the message as the basis for a news story about Gelernter's medical condition and his reflections on the bombing.

That story, in turn, got picked up and relayed to newspapers across the country through AP's own network.

The Gelernter story has highlighted a range of ethical difficulties journalists will face as they continue to explore the power of computers as information sources.

Among the first to raise questions about the Gelernter story was Tom Boyer, a staff writer specializing in computer-assisted reporting at The Virginian-Pilot/The Ledger-Star in Norfolk, Va.

Boyer, communicating by way of the Internet with computer journalists and academics worldwide, asked whether it was right for the news media to report on Gelernter's electronic message, or E-mail, without obtaining the author's permission.

Boyer also made reference to "Netiquette": an informal, unwritten code that seeks to encourage courtesy and civility among users of computer networks.

"My understanding of Netiquette is that you never blindly quote someone based on E-mail ... submissions. If you do it, you're endangering the free-wheeling atmosphere that makes the Internet so valuable to journalists in the first place. It's not that hard to contact the person and ask permission to quote or interview on the subject (we do that a lot)," Boyer wrote.

His remarks prompted an outpouring of opinion; some decried the Gelernter story, others applauded it.

Some worried that Gelernter's privacy had been invaded somehow.

"Was Gelernter's message to his friends and colleagues, using a network he routinely uses for personal communication, intended as a public news release? I doubt it," one said.

"To quote from a message on the Internet that is clearly not intended for general distribution ... is essentially to base a story on an overheard conversation or a mistakenly opened letter," another said.

Still others thought those concerns were misguided:

"Privacy, shmivacy. The real `ethics check' ought to deal with authenticity and accuracy. It's remarkably easy -- trivial, in fact -- to forge an identity in an E-mail [message]."

Despite those potential hazards, other observers thought Gelernter's message was fair game for the news media, likening it to a letter posted on a public bulletin board.

"I think anything mailed to an Internet mailing list must be viewed as public, not private. ... It still seems only common courtesy for the media to get [the author's] permission before using such info in a story. However, as they told us in the last corporation I worked at, don't say anything in E-mail you wouldn't want to see on the front page of the newspaper."

Several people thought that appropriately identifying the source of the information as an electronic message was enough, even if Gelernter did not confirm his authorship or agree to its use in a news story.

Clearly, debate has only just begun on the ethics of using information from public computer networks in news stories. But such a debate is inevitable, given the incredible speed and ease with which information can be exchanged using computers.

Computer networkers and journalists have long worked in separate worlds. Now those worlds are colliding. Both sides will be adjusting to the new reality for some time to come.

John M. Moran is a reporter in The Courant's Manchester bureau

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