[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

RAIN 09/18: New Home



Atlanta Journal Constitution 9/15/00
Drivers’ records open to alteration, report says


By David Pendered
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/friday/news_931c4c0f41ade1c40095.html
Information on millions of licensed drivers in Georgia is vulnerable to unauthorized alterations in a system that leaves no trace of who might have made the changes. And that presents a opportunity for unchecked abuse, state officials have discovered. 
The procedural lapses within the Georgia Department of Public Safety's licensing division are detailed in a performance audit report conducted by state Auditor Russell Hilton's office. 
The audit report, released Aug. 31, says Public Safety workers with access to 5.6 million driving records have little accountability and virtually no oversight in offices in Atlanta and at 11 sites statewide where licenses are reinstated, and at 18 State Patrol stations. 


Roanoke Times 9/15/00
Judge won’t fine lawyer for leaking medical records
http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/news/story99580.html

By Jen McCaffrey
A federal judge will not fine a Roanoke attorney who subpoenaed and then made public the medical records of a defendant in a civil suit stemming from a fatal attack on a mental hospital patient. 
The attorney general's office alleged Jonathan Rogers did not inform them that he planned to subpoena the records about the late Lynwood Harding, the former director of Western State Hospital. 
The attorney general's office also had wanted Rogers fined for revealing the records to http://theroanoketimes.com/The Roanoke Times and the Virginia Retirement System. The records disclosed that Harding was treated for depression, obsessive-compulsive behavior and suicidal tendencies before his death at age 50 on May 18. 



Evansville Courier & Press
Judge ‘greatly disappointed’ in destruction of documents
http://www.courierpress.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?200009/14+terro091400_latestnews.html+20000914

Associated Press
A federal judge said Thursday he is "greatly disappointed" in the Treasury Department for destroying documents sought by victims of a terrorist bombing. 
But U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth declined to punish the government, saying he believes the documents were destroyed accidentally. 
The ruling came in the case of Stephen Flatow, a New Jersey man whose daughter Alisa was killed in a 1995 bombing in the Gaza Strip. Flatow sued Iran under a 1996 anti-terrorism law that authorized legal action against state sponsors of terrorist acts. 



New York Times 9/12/00
New Homes for the ‘Charters of Freedom’
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/12/science/12CONS.html

By Warren E. Leary
Washington, Sept 11 -- After more than five years of concerns and planning, the first of a new set of cases to protect the original United States Constitution and other key national documents is ready to replace older encasements that have begun to break down.
Engineers with the federal government and private contractors have built the first of new airtight enclosures that they say should preserve the founding documents of the nation for more than 100 years and help make them easier for people to view.


Dallas Morning News 9/17/00
Patient’s data not so private
New rules to limit disclosure
http://www.dallasnews.com/science/171774_privacy_17dis..html

By Laura Beil and Charles Ornstein
An enterprising saleswoman visited Dr. Linda Hughes one day in 1998 to promote her company's product. At first, nothing distinguished the woman from the armies of other dapper pharmaceutical reps who had knocked on the Dallas psychiatrist's door. 
But as she left, the woman dropped off a list of 31 patients for whom Dr. Hughes had recently prescribed antidepressants. Perhaps, the woman asked, the doctor might consider switching to her company's drug? 
"I was in shock," Dr. Hughes said. Scanning the computer printout, she saw her patients' names, birth dates and employers. She never learned how these personal details ended up in the hands of a drug vendor. 
The drug company had done nothing illegal. No federal law makes medical information private. States have adopted a few restrictions, but the protection is piecemeal at best. For example, in Texas, health authorities can't disclose the fact that a person has eaten bad oysters. Names in disease outbreaks are confidential. But get a prescription filled for Viagra, and no law keeps it a secret. 


Washington Post 9/16/00
George Washington’s Diaries go online
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15632-2000Sep15.html

By Spencer S. Hsu
He was first in war and first in peace, but long before George Washington earned his way into his countrymen's hearts, he was a greenhorn frontiersman, a newlywed hoodwinked by a Mount Vernon neighbor and a companion to a dying half brother in Barbados.
Washington recorded these events and other daily occurrences in diaries during 51 years of his life; now anybody with Internet access can read them.


Washington Post 9/16/00
On exhibit for We, the People
Constitution page displayed, thanks to new technology
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17617-2000Sep16.html

By Linda Wheeler
The second page of the U.S. Constitution is the star of a three-day exhibit that opened yesterday at the National Archives, where the rarely seen piece of parchment has center stage in the historic Rotunda.
A new method to preserve the Constitution is as much a part of the show as the single page. Space-age technology was used to create encasements with an aluminum base, a titanium frame and 3/8-inch-thick laminated, tempered glass--and filled with argon gas.
The new display system replaces a 50-year-old model that had begun to deteriorate. The special exhibit, open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and tomorrow, is part of Constitution Week, which the Archives is marking with concerts, films and panel discussions.


Times of London 9/16/00
Decoded files reveal the enemy within
http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/09/16/timnwsnws02024.html

By Ian Cobain
EVIDENCE that the East Germans had a spy at Chatham House comes from two sources within the files of the Stasi's foreign intelligence division, the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (Main Administration Reconnaissance) or HVA. 
After the Berlin Wall came down, most of the files were destroyed on the orders of the head of the HVA, Markus Wolf. A few fragments survived, including the archives of its Leipzig outstation. 
Those papers led to the exposure last year of three British Stasi agents: the Hull university lecturer Robin Pearson, Fiona Houlding, now a 37-year-old mother, and Vic Allen, a former leading member of CND. 



New Haven Register 9/17/00
Papers at Pequot museum believed stolen from state
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=864166&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=7569&rfi=9

Associated Press
HARTFORD — State police have launched a criminal investigation in an attempt to determine whether documents on display at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum were stolen from the archives of the State Library.
The investigation was requested by State Librarian Kendall Wiggin on advice from Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s staff. 



National Post 9/16/00
Web site removes Canadian academic papers
Students win victory: Site reproduces, sells work found at National Library
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/national/story.html?f=/stories/20000916/401989.html

By Jen Ross
Southam News
OTTAWA - All Canadian theses and dissertations will be removed from the Web site Contentville.com after graduate students won a temporary victory yesterday over what they call "the commercialization of Canadian research."
Students, faculty and research library representatives who met at the National Library of Canada yesterday, were asked to decide between a temporary blanket removal of all Canadian academic work and an opt-out option, where students would have to request that their theses be removed from the site.



Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 9/17/00
Washington County: Broad look at past lies in archives
http://www.ardemgaz.com/week/Sun/nwa/nwB1nwarchives17.html

By Amy Schlesing
FAYETTEVILLE -- Preston Smith is credited with saving the written history of Washington County from becoming a casualty of the Civil War.
As the war marched toward the city, the former county clerk gathered the county archives and stashed them in Finches Cave on the outskirts of Fayetteville.
The result of Smith's efforts is one of the most extensive archives in the state -- a historical treasure, as described by Washington County Chancellor Mary Ann Gunn.


The Australian 9/18/00
Olsen vetos liberalised FOI laws
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,1210335%255E421,00.html

By Carol Altmann
THE Olsen Government has rejected proposals to overhaul South Australia's failing freedom-of-information laws that would make them among the most liberal in the nation.
A three-year, all-party parliamentary committee review into the state's FOI laws has found the present act to be complicated and, in many cases, against the spirit of freedom of information. 


Seattle Post-Intelligencer 9/16/00
Blackfeet want Babbitt fined over loss of records
Dispute is part of Indians’ accusations of mismanagement in federal trust lands
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/national/bia16.shtml

By Matt Kelley
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for a group of American Indians asked a federal judge yesterday to fine Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt for violating court orders requiring him to preserve e-mail and other records. 
Yesterday's filing is the latest dispute over records in the lawsuit over mismanagement of a $500 million system of trust accounts for about 500,000 Indians. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth held Babbitt and other officials in contempt of court last year for their agencies' failures to keep and turn over records. 


St. Petersburg Times 9/14/00
Nelson calls for HMO firms’ records
http://www.sptimes.com/News/091400/State/Nelson_calls_for_HMO_.shtml

By Saundra Amrhein
State Insurance Commissioner Bill Nelson has issued subpoenas for seven insurance companies in hopes of learning more about why they pulled Medicare HMO plans out of several Florida counties. 
It is the second time during a political campaign that Nelson, who has no regulatory authority in such cases, has tried to dig into the records of Medicare HMOs that withdrew their plans and prescription drug coverage from thousands of Florida residents. 
Nelson, who is running for U.S. Senate, asked for records in October of 1998 when he was running for re-election as insurance commissioner. That investigation turned up no wrongdoing. 



Savannah Morning News 9/17/00
Editorial: Rewriting the record
http://www.savannahmorningnews.com/smn/stories/091700/OPEDtwo.shtml

THE ACCURACY of state driver's license records affect the safety of Georgia's highways. The wrong information could allow drunk drivers or habitual speeders to wreak havoc on our streets and roads. 
A recently released state audit contends that state driving records are vulnerable to unauthorized changes. If that's true, the state must take immediate action to assure the sanctity of those records. 
The report, issued in late August, says 146 Department of Public Safety workers can access the driving records of 5.6 million Georgians and make unauthorized changes. To compound the problem, it would be impossible to determine who made the change. 


Miami Herald 9/14/00
Judge sides with town in public records case
http://www.herald.com/content/today/news/dade/north/digdocs/048106.htm

By Walter Pacheco
Another chapter in Golden Beach's saga of lawsuits may be coming closer to an end. 
Last week, at an evidentiary hearing on a public records request by resident Carlos Lidsky, Miami-Dade County Judge Gerald Hubbart ruled the town was not in contempt of court and would not be fined for not producing resolutions and ordinances. 
Hubbart agreed the city did not willfully withhold any records from Lidsky, but did criticize the town's poor record keeping. 


Peter Kurilecz
pakurilecz@aol.com

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>