A very good idea!

Kevin Drum of "Politcal Animal" has a very good idea for legislation regulating personal data databases in America;

• Stricter regulation of personal information, along the lines of Corzine's legislation but tougher. This would apply to companies that limit their databases to information about their own transactions with their own customers.

• Individuals should be invested with property rights in any commercial collection of personal data about themselves that's assembled from multiple sources. In a modern society, any such collection really is "your" identity. You should have the right to control it.

As co-owners of the data, consumers would have the absolute right to be informed that a file on them exists; to review their files free of charge; to contest any information in their files; to be notified whenever their data is requested; to compensation if their data is sold to another broker; and to approve the release of their data.

Think about it, friends and neighbors. Corporations gather information about you, often confuse it with others making it wildly inaccurate, and then don't protect it from identity thieves. It's *your* identity, it's *your* information, why should *they* be making money off it, corrupting it, and then don't take precautions against it being stolen?

Go, read the article, and then send it to your congressional representatives. You can use the links I've provided in the bar to the right to contact them.