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Records/Archives in the News Part 05 01/20/00



Records/Archives in the News r991227a
There are 9 stories in this posting.

Duluth News-Tribune 12/27/99
Jan. 1 brings new Wisconsin laws

Albuquerque Journal 12/28/99
Casinos? records targeted

Minneapolis/St.Paul Pioneer Planet 12/28/99
Editorial: Judges must allow access to records

Washington Post 12/29/99
Obituary: Sherrod E. East Archivist of World War II records

Las Vegas Sun 12/29/99
Court allows adoption record access

PRNewswire 12/29/99
CENSA reports trillion-dollar losses of legal records....

The Oregonian 12/29/99
Judge orders Shakespeare festival to open its records

Boston Globe 12/30/99
Old records found in construction site

San Francisco Chronicle 12/30/99
Stolen records at heart of new Medi-Cal scam


_______________________________________________________________
Duluth News-Tribune 12/27/99
Jan. 1 brings new Wisconsin laws

by Anthony Jewell
Associated Press
<SNIP>
MADISON -- The new year brings a handful of new laws to Wisconsin, and the 
one that likely will have the biggest impact on the state is the elimination 
of parole within the corrections system. 
The ``truth-in-sentencing'' law, which was passed in 1998, requires convicts 
to serve their entire sentences without the possibility of getting out early. 
There also are new laws that prohibit police forces from having traffic 
ticket-writing quotas, allow merchants to share in lottery winnings and 
require businesses to destroy sensitive information about clients before 
throwing documents away.
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
Dumpster diving: The law requires businesses to destroy clients' financial or 
medical records before throwing them away. It is designed to protect 
residents from having their identities stolen by people rummaging through 
trash. 
Under the law, which takes effect Feb. 1, businesses will only be able to 
throw out records containing information such as Social Security and credit 
card numbers if they shred or alter the documents to make personal data 
unreadable. 
Violators can be fined up to $1,000 per incident. Businesses also can be held 
liable in civil court for damages suffered by anyone whose personal 
information is improperly thrown away. 
Wisconsin businesses and the law's sponsors have said that most companies 
already are vigilant in destroying the information and the law is just a 
safeguard
<SNIP>

________________________________________________________________
Albuquerque Journal 12/28/99
Casinos? records targeted

by Wren Propp
<SNIP>
SANTA FE?A legislative committee studying a possible replacement for the 
agreement governing Indian gambling in New Mexico decided Monday that tribal 
casinos? financial records should be open to the public. 
The proposed agreement, being reviewed by the legislative Committee on 
Compacts, keeps the tribes? financial records and audits out of public view 
even though the tribes are required to submit the information to the state 
Gaming Control Board and the state Treasurer?s Office. 
The committee agreed to recommend changes suggested by Pat Rogers, a lobbyist 
for the New Mexico Press Association, who said the committee should recommend 
that the new agreement include limitations on confidentiality spelled out in 
the current gambling compacts. 
?The new agreement forecloses all information from being public documents,? 
Rogers said during the hearing. 
Rogers also said the committee should define what information can be kept 
from the public on the grounds that tribes believe the release of such data 
would give their rivals a competitive advantage. Committee members said they 
would include a definition of ?proprietary? information in their 
recommendations. 
Lawmakers could prevent corruption from infecting gambling in New Mexico by 
recommending changes in the new agreement that would allow for more public 
access to the records, Rogers said while arguing his case for making the 
financial statements open records. 
Rogers said that without the changes, ?You?re going to have to spend money to 
make sure ... that all the money is on top of the tables and not somewhere 
else.? 
Frank Chaves, chairman of the New Mexico Indian Gaming Association, said 
tribes and pueblos aren?t trying to hide anything. But Indian groups want the 
information handled carefully, Chaves said after the committee?s hearing. 
Chaves said tribes mistrust the state?s handling of records in the wake of a 
recent decision by the Treasurer?s Office to release financial information 
from Indian casinos. 
Attorney General Patricia Madrid ordered the Gaming Control Board in November 
to give the public and the news media access to the casinos? financial 
documents as required in the current agreement. But the board has not yet 
done so. 
<SNIP>

________________________________________________________________
Minneapolis/St.Paul Pioneer Planet 12/28/99
Editorial: Judges must allow access to records
<SNIP>
The U.S. Judicial Conference must reverse its decision to block Internet 
access to federal judges? financial statements. The sweeping ban is an 
affront to the spirit of openness and accountability, and unreasonably 
interferes with citizens, lawyers and reporters who may want to scrutinize 
possible conflicts of interest among these uniquely powerful public 
officials. 
Earlier this month, the conference?s disclosure committee permanently refused 
APBnews.com permission to post on its Web site legally required public 
reports on 1,600 federal judges? financial interests. APBnews.com had filed a 
First Amendment lawsuit to force open the judges? statements. The Internet 
company appeared to have a strong case. However, the Judicial Conference 
disclosure committee decreed Internet access to this information might 
somehow endanger judges and their families. 
But since these reports include no addresses, phone numbers or other data 
that would reveal a judge?s whereabouts, this claim is difficult to take 
seriously. 
What will be endangered by the Internet posting is judges? ability to conceal 
any conflicts of interest from litigants and the public. Several cases of 
conflict, including some in which judges have been found ruling on matters 
involving companies in which they held stock, show this is no idle concern. 
All elected federal officials, including the president and members of 
Congress, are required to make the same financial disclosure as judges. Yet 
it may be most important in the judges? case. Once on the federal bench, a 
judge serves for life, barring impeachable offenses. And the rulings of 
federal judges, especially constitutional rulings, are difficult to change 
through the other branches of government. 
Confidence in the courts, vital to public faith in our system of laws, 
depends on assurance that judges have no personal or ulterior motive in the 
rulings they make. The judges? refusal to expose their disclosure statements 
to a powerful new forum for accountability, the Internet, is a flagrant 
effort to prevent the kind of scrutiny that alone can provide that assurance.
<SNIP>

_______________________________________________________________
Washington Post 12/29/99
Obituary: Sherrod E. East Archivist of World War II records
<SNIP>
Sherrod E. East, 89, the chief archivist of World War II documents who 
retired in 1966 as assistant archivist of the United States for military 
archives, died Dec. 26 at home in Boyds. He had Alzheimer?s disease. 
Mr. East also was a retired colonel in the Army Reserve. 
He was born in Lowndes County, Miss., and graduated from the University of 
Denver, after also having studied at George Washington University. He came to 
Washington in 1933 as an aide to Rep. Lawrence Lewis (D-Colo.), and he also 
worked at the Library of Congress. He did graduate study in archives 
administration at American University. 
He began his career with the National Archives in 1937, then during the war 
was assigned to the War Department. 
After the war, he remained with the Army Department as chief of the archival 
unit responsible for top-level records of the War Department. 
Not until 1958 were these records sufficiently processed to be transferred to 
the National Archives for permanent preservation and public use. At that 
time, Mr. East, his staff and 200,000 cubic feet of military records were 
transferred to the National Archives, from which Mr. East retired. 
In 1967, he accepted a one-year appointment as official historian of the 
Maryland Constitutional Convention. In 1971, he was posted to Okinawa to 
close out records of the 27-year administration of the Ryukyu Islands before 
their return to Japanese control. 
While working as a military archivist, Mr. East served 20 years in the Army 
Reserve. He earned a Legion of Merit and retired as a colonel. 
With his wife and daughter, his was among the first families to move into the 
new town of Greenbelt in 1937. Later he served on the Greenbelt Town Council 
and was first vice president of the Greenbelt cooperative. He participated in 
negotiations for the sale of the town to its residents. 
He later lived in Arlington. He was a former trustee of the Unitarian Church 
of Arlington. 
Survivors include his wife of 64 years, Dorothy Loverne Parsons East of 
Boyds; four children, Marian Rubach of Bowie, Kathleen Walker of Boyds, Ellen 
Dionna Hover of Corinth, Vt., and William Parham East of Great Cacapon, 
W.Va.; 12 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. 
<SNIP>

________________________________________________________________
Las Vegas Sun 12/29/99
Court allows adoption record access

Associated Press
<SNIP>
SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- The Oregon Court of Appeals Wednesday upheld the nation?s 
first voter-passed law giving adult adoptees access to their original birth 
certificates. 
A three-judge panel unanimously held that birth mothers have no 
constitutional right to have the records kept confidential. The court also 
lifted an injunction barring the state Health Division from releasing the 
records. 
The measure was solidly passed by Oregonians in November 1998 but it never 
has taken effect. A trial judge upheld the law, but the appeals court had 
continued a stay preventing release of records. 
The law says adoptees 21 or older can obtain their original birth 
certificates, which often contain birth parents? names. 
Foes argue that the law unconstitutionally breaches rights of privacy and 
contract; the court rejected both contentions. 
The decision could be appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court, which would 
decide whether to review the lower court decision. 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
The chief sponsor of the law, Helen Hill, said today?s ruling will give 
adoptees like her the same rights as other people to know the identity of 
their biological parents. 
<SNIP>
<SNIP>
But a group that opposes Oregon?s law, the National Council for Adoption, 
said the ruling opens the door to birth mothers being harassed by children 
they gave up for adoption with the understanding they would never be 
contacted. 
?The state of Oregon is saying to all of the people who were promised privacy 
in the past, ?We were lying to you,? ? said Bill Pierce, spokesman for the 
Washington, D.C.-based group. 
Deputy Attorney General David Schuman had argued to the court that the ?right 
to anonymous adoption was invented in 1957,? referring to the Legislature?s 
passage of a law that year sealing what had been open records. 
The appeals court said the change in the confidentiality law didn?t impair 
any contract rights agreements under either the state or federal 
constitutions. 
The court also said birth mothers had no constitutional guarantee of privacy. 
?At no time in Oregon?s history have the adoption laws required the consent 
of, or even notice to, a birth mother on the opening of adoption records or 
sealed birth certificates,? the appeals court said in an opinion written by 
Judge Paul De Muniz. 
He said adoption ?is not a fundamental right,? so there?s no basic right to 
have a child adopted with a pledge to keep the mother?s identity secret. 
<SNIP>


________________________________________________________________
PRNewswire 12/29/99
CENSA reports trillion-dollar losses of legal records....
<SNIP>
BOSTON, Dec. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- ?Titanic 2020,? a just-released research 
report from CENSA, a global market development association, notes that 
dramatic, trillion-dollar losses of critical data and legal records will soon 
occur because of inadequate software infrastructures that we must fix soon. 
The research report points out deep design flaws in electronic preparedness 
for the 21st century. The report calls the Y2K computer bug ?the tip of the 
iceberg? compared to far more serious problems that will start soon and last 
well beyond the year 2020. Current technology mindsets ignore the problem of 
creating systems for long-term preservation and access to electronic records. 
The result is fragile records of all kinds?business, legal, scientific, and 
personal. In ?Titanic 2020,? researcher Dr. Rich Lysakowski notes that within 
ten years, the total number of electronic records produced on the planet 
could be doubling every sixty minutes. Simultaneously, the integrity of these 
records as legal evidence will be frequently violated until new systems are 
designed to meet the needs for long-term archiving of electronic data and 
legal records. The report makes a call to action to global industry to 
proactively solve these problems soon or else suffer major, recurring 
consequences much costlier than Y2K.