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RAIN 11/10: Privacy Issues, Patient records and real letters



Orlando Sentinel 11/09/00
Tough Case: public records vs. people's privacy
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/automagic/news/2000-11-09/LOCprivate09110900.ht

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by Todd Pack
On paper, it seems state government should have no trouble coming up with a
plan to keep people`s personal details secret.
But it isn`t as simple as that. The state generally isn`t allowed to keep
secrets. If there`s a piece of paper somewhere listing your address and
Social Security number -- and there probably is -- anyone who wants it is
allowed to see it.
That`s the dilemma facing a state Task Force on Privacy and Technology, which
was scheduled to hold its fourth and possibly final meeting today in
Tallahassee. That meeting was canceled after several task force members were
called away because of the presidential vote recount. A new date has not been
set.
Charged with looking at the sale of public records to private businesses and
coming up with a plan to curb identity theft and ensure privacy, the
17-member panel has discovered there is relatively little it can do.
Not only does the state constitution guarantee anyone the right to see
government records, there has been little agreement among task force members
about the larger issue of consumer privacy.



Dallas Morning News 11/09/00
Just what the doctor entered
With patient e-mail and online records, some worry about bugs in the system
http://www.dallasnews.com/technology/209787_medical09.html

by Paula Felps
Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
Scott Yates is one of a growing number of physicians who has veered away from
the paper trail.
Dr. Yates, who practices internal medicine, is completely wired at his office
at the North Texas Medical Group in The Colony - something he says has
improved the clinic's communication and efficiency.
"Basically, there's no paper because everything is done electronically," he
says. "My patients can contact me by e-mail so they don't have to play phone
tag. They can schedule appointments, ask questions, get prescription refills
- and not have to worry about waiting for us to call them back."
If the growing numbers of software programs and online resources are any
indication, more medical professionals appear to be turning to electronic
options in their offices.



Capitol Hill Blue 11/09/00
Probe into Census e-mails dropped
http://capitolhillblue.com/a/ap.washington/20001109/3a0adf95.6c15.7/ap.asp

Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional investigators dropped a probe into Census
Bureau e-mails and memos that was initiated following complaints by a House
Republican that there was a lack of cooperation with monitors of the count.
House members had requested the General Accounting Office to investigate
after Rep. Dan Miller, R-Fla., in May produced an e-mail from an unidentified
Los Angeles-area census manager instructing lower-ranking officials not to
provide certain daily progress reports to GAO officials.
But Census officials and Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, ranking Democrat
on the House Government Reform census subcommittee, raised objections that
the privacy of agency employees could be violated after GAO in July asked for
``any and all correspondence'' concerning oversight access to Census data.



Washington Post 11/09/00
In praise of real letters
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50546-2000Nov9.html

by Mark Gauvreau Judge
I recently was cleaning out a pile of old files and magazines that have sat
in my basement since the Pleistocene era, or at least the early '80s. None of
it looked very valuable, so I was simply grabbing armfuls of the stuff and
loading it into a plastic garbage bag. In the midst of this excavation, a box
fell out. It was about twice the size of a shoe box. I picked it up and the
lid popped off.
Letters. At least a hundred. While I instantly knew what it was, I froze for
a second, not quite believing it. In the prehistoric era--before the
Internet--I kept in touch with family and friends via the U.S. mail, and here
was a faded artifact of that time: boxy red envelopes with birthday cards,
long, thin letters from my father and aunts and uncles, long late-night
musings by my high school buddies.



The Spokesman-Review 11/09/00
Just the fax
Internet age fails to make fax machines obsolete
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=110900&ID=s877346

by Mike Musgrove
Washington Post
Once upon a time, the shrill tones of the fax machine were supposed to be the
death knell for the courier industry.
The document-sending technology seemed such a threat that FedEx launched a
competing system, called ZapMail, to thwart its success.
ZapMail never caught on, but FedEx is very much alive and kicking. And so is
the fax industry, despite predictions that the advent of the digital age
would do away with the need for people to send paper copies of documents
across telephone lines.
Fax machines remain such a fixture in most offices that several online
companies are trying to make a business out of enabling people to fax their
documents to a Web site -- creating a kind of bridge to the technological
divide.



Sydney Morning Herald 11/09/00
Web records belong to patients, says privacy boss
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0011/09/text/national17.html

by Joseph Kerr and Judith Whelan
Privacy laws would have to be changed to ensure people had ownership of their
own medical records, a parliamentary forum heard yesterday.
The NSW Privacy Commissioner, Mr Chris Puplick, said that while the current
law awarded ownership of medical records to the doctors who had produced
them, any move to make them available online meant the patients would have to
own their own records.
But Mr Puplick warned this may lead to shadow ledgers of patients' records -
one for the doctor's own use, and one that would be open to other doctors.



Sydney Morning Herald 11/09/00
Save the front page
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0011/09/text/features10.html

When the British Library decided to dump a historic archive of American
newspapers, the best-selling novelist Nicholson Baker was so horrified he
decided to buy it. He is now engaged in a one-man campaign to rescue "the raw
store of history' that microfilm and the internet promise to destroy.
Susannah Herbert reports from New Hampshire (The Daily Telegraph, London)

Nicholson Baker's favourite copy of the weekly San Francisco Argonaut stands
out from the other newspapers he has saved because it is grey and grubby. He
loves it - and love is not too strong a word - for its looks. " Why do you
think this is here?" he demands. "And why is it this strange colour?"
Age? I venture. The passage of time? "No!" he says, a tall, bearded,
bespectacled prophet deciphering a sacred text. "It's smoke damage.
Earthquake damage. This one must have been at the top of the stack in the
Argonaut offices on the day of the great San Francisco quake and fire. Just
look at the date - April 14 1906. It all fits. The others are clean, they
don't have the damage but, this . . . ah, it's incredible. Its own history.
That's why you need to keep originals."



Boston Globe 11/09/00
Tribal leaders are in contempt, but arrests are delayed for now
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/314/region/Tribal_leaders_are_in_contempt:.sht

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Associated Press
AUBURN, Maine (AP) A judge on Thursday found three tribal governors to be in
contempt for failing to turn over documents to three paper companies in a
legal dispute over who should control water quality near Indian territories.
Superior Court Justice Robert Crowley ordered the arrest of the leaders of
the Penobscot Nation and of two Passamaquoddy reservations and fined both
tribes $1,000 a day until they turn over the documents.
But all penalties were put on hold until Nov. 13 to allow time for them to
file appeals of the contempt order and earlier court rulings.
Gov. Barry Dana of the Penobscot Nation and the two Passamaquoddy governors,
Richard Doyle of the Pleasant Point Reservation and Richard Stevens of the
Indian Township Reservation, were released on personal recognizance.





Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA
Richmond, Va
pakurilecz@aol.com

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