题目内容

After two recent, big privacy disasters, people and politicians are calling for action. In February, ChoicePoint, a large data-collection agency, began sending out letters warning 145,000 Americans that it had wrongly provided fraudsters with their personal details, including Social Security numbers. Around 750 people have already spotted fraudulent activity. And on February 25th, Bank of America revealed that it lost data tapes that contain personal information on over lm government employees, including some Senators. Although accident and not illegality is suspected, all must take precautions against identity theft.
Faced with such incidents, state and national lawmakers are calling for new regulations, including over companies that collect and sell personal information. As an industry, the firms—such as ChoicePoint, Acxiom, LexisNexis and Westlaw—are largely unregulated. They have also grown enormous. For example, ChoicePoint was founded in 1997 and has acquired nearly 60 firms to amass databases with 19 billion records on people. It is used by insurance firms, landlords and even police agencies.
California is the only state, with a law requiring companies to notify individuals when their personal information has been compromised—which made ChoicePoint reveal the fraud (albeit five months after it was noticed, and after its top two bosses exercised stock options). Legislation to make the requirement a federal law is under consideration. Moreover, lawmakers say they will propose that rules governing credit bureaus and medical companies are extended to data-collection firms. And alongside legislation, there is always litigation. Already, ChoicePoint has been sued for failing to safeguard individuals' data.
Yet the legal remedies would still be far looser than in Europe, where identity theft is also a menace, though less frequent and costly. The European Data Protection Directive, implemented in 1998, gives people the right to access their information, change inaccuracies, and deny permission for it to be shared. Moreover, it places the cost of mistakes on the companies that collect the data, not on individuals. When the law was put in force, American policymakers groaned that it was bad for business. But now they seem to be reconsidering it.
Plato and St. Augustine are mentioned in the text to

A. raise philosophical questions.
B. show an obvious contrast.
C. introduce the criminals,
D. pave the way for the main topic.

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It can be inferred from the last three sentences that

A. those who have fought and bullied cannot be considered civilized.
B. there is nothing wrong if civilized people do some fighting and bullying.
C. even civilized people have done some fighting and bullying.
D. civilized people have never done any fighting and bullying.

The author would most probably agree that the origin of environmental pollution lies in

A. the indifference to the condition of the environment.
B. the lack of the ability to control the progress of science.
C. the inability of science to deal with certain human endeavors.
D. the ignorance of the disposal of pollutants.

NRC is criticized by Congress members chiefly because

A. law makers draw the conclusion that NRC has illegal documents.
B. they think NRC is hiding more information than it should be.
C. the public have the rights to know any potential hazards.
D. they think nuclear facilities are not a matter of national security.

It will be argued that the purpose of science is to move into unknown territory, to explore, and to discover. It can be said that similar risks have been taken before, and that these risks are necessary to technological progress.
These arguments overlook an important element. In the past, risks taken in the name of scientific progress were restricted to a small place and brief period of time. The effects of the processes we now strive to master are neither localized nor brief. Air pollution covers vast urban areas. Ocean pollutants have been discovered in nearly every part of the world. Synthetic chemicals spread over huge stretches of forest and farmland may remain in the soil for decades and years to come. Radioactive pollutants will be found in the biosphere for generations. The size and persistence of these problems have grown with the expanding power of modern science.
One might also argue that the hazards of modern pollutants are small compared with the dangers associated with other human activity. No estimate of the actual harm done by smog, fallout, or chemical residues can obscure the reality that the risks are being taken before being fully understood.
The importance of these issues lies in the failure of science to predict and control human intervention into natural processes. The true measure of the danger is represented by the hazards we will encounter if we enter the new age of technology without first evaluating our responsibility to environment.
Which of the following adjectives may best describe the tone of this text?

A. Unconcerned.
B. Humorous.
C. Serious.
D. Exaggerated.

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