FBI, Microsoft are big 'winners' in Big Brother Awards

WASHINGTON -- The FBI, Microsoft Corp., and U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum were among those to get the highly dubious honor of receiving "Big Brother Awards" at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference here Wednesday.

The 'awards,' given out by U.K.-based watchdog group Privacy International, go to the companies, government agencies and individuals the group believes have done the most to invade citizens' privacy in the past year.

Although Wednesday night's ceremony -- coming at the end of the conference's second day of intense discussions about personal privacy in the digital age -- included dark references to George Orwell's famous novel "1984," the mood of the participants was decidedly jovial.

And the winners are...
The London School of Economics' Simon Davies acted as emcee, handing out awards in the shape of a boot stepping on a person's head, in a reference to the chilling line from "1984": "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever."

The categories were "most invasive proposal by a government agency," "worst public official," "greatest corporate invader," and "lifetime menace," along with a special "people's choice award."

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took the award for most invasive proposal for its "Know Your Customer" banking ID card scheme. McCollum, the Florida Republican who sponsored a bill that would give police expanded wiretap authority, got the worst public official award.

The race for "greatest corporate invader" was an upset -- the betting among the spectators was on Intel Corp., which drew fire from privacy advocates for the identification number in its Pentium III chip. But Woburn, Mass.-based Elensys Inc. beat out Intel with its recent purchase of patient records from 15,000 U.S. pharmacies.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was named the "lifetime menace," and Microsoft was "honored" with Privacy International's people's choice award.

Unlike the other 'winners,' some Microsoft officials were actually in the audience. Saul Klein, Microsoft's chief of user privacy initiatives, although looking a bit mortified, was good-natured about the ribbing he received when he came to the stage.

"This is the first thing I've ever won," said Klein, drawing laughter from the audience.