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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
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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>
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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>
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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>
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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.