Reply #18: Here's the situation

[maxr4clark]

Axciom is a database company, based in Little Rock. Lockheed-Martin is the company that does CAPPS II. CAPPS II uses information that comes from Axciom's databases. When Axciom discovered, shortly after 9/11, that they had information on 11 of the 18 terrorists, they thought the government might be interested in knowing that. They contacted Clark, who introduced Axciom to the government agency that was funding Lockheed-Martin to make CAPPS II.

When he represented Axciom to Lockheed-Martin, as he said in the debate and as I had previously read in a Washington Post article, Clark stressed that the information must be used in a way compatible with existing privacy rights.

Clark did not lie in the debate. Clark does not know whether CAPPS II makes appropriate use of the information that Axciom provides or not. He acted as a salesman on Axciom's behalf, selling a raw material (in this case, information) to Lockheed-Martin. Whether Lockheed-Martin makes appropriate use of that information is a very important issue, and Clark pointed that out to them. If CAPPS II violates privacy rights, though, that is Lockheed-Martin's failure, not General Clark's. Clark represented the civil liberties correctly to the company that might violate them.

Clear enough?