My wife and I recently leased a vehicle for the first time. I spent a lot of time studying the paperwork in the dealership's finance office. I cynically assumed I'd get screwed somewhere, but I wanted to make sure I got screwed in a clever and devious way, not because I missed some obvious mistake.

If you want the car, you've no choice but to sign their privacy agreement, so I did. Yesterday I found a hard copy in the mailbox, spelling out the specifics. This morning I read it over breakfast and almost spit my coffee out.

I know you probably can't read that tiny image, so I'll blow it up and circle the parts that concern me. First off, the company helpfully lets you know that you can limit some, but not all, of your personal information being shared. I can't stop the first four below:

I'm fine with that first one, it's the others that irk me.

Then there's this:

"Federal law gives consumers the right to limit some but not all sharing"--why?

And why the heck are they allowed to give our social security numbers out?

(From what I understand, this agreement is the same whether you lease or finance. So when I financed a car a few years ago, I'm sure these same privacy details went unnoticed in the pile of documents they sent me.)

I guess what I'm really wondering is: Which nutjob politician do I have to vote for that will make it harder for companies to throw our info around?