Linda Joy Sullivan: Not so remembered lessons from the not so distant past

Editor’s note: This commentary is by Rep. Linda Joy Sullivan, a Democrat who represents the Bennington-Rutland District in the Vermont House of Representatives.
In the late 1960s, at the dawn of the computer age and as the public’s confidence in government was beginning badly to wane, a lively discussion took place about the dangers of “big government” collection of data about Americans. Several years of debate – and abuses by the Nixon administration – led to