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RAIN 0316 Weekly Update: Disaster, Privacy and General (23)



Mount Pleasant News 03/08/02
Water leak damages Harlan-Lincoln House
By:Steven Martens
A burst water pipe discovered Wednesday morning damaged the historic Harlan-
Lincoln House in Mt. Pleasant, as well as about 20 boxes of books and about 20 framed
photos and documents, Iowa Wesleyan College archivist Lynn Ellsworth said Thursday.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=3490372&BRD=1141&PAG=461&dept_id=163037&rfi=6


BusinessFinanceMag.com 03/2002
The Brave New World of Disaster Recovery
By Eric Krell
Companies are revisiting their disaster recovery plans to cover the harsh new realities of life on U.S. soil.
http://www.businessfinancemag.com/archives/appfil...ssueID=360&ArticleID=13852&Print=Y&CurrChannel=10


Calgary Herald 03/15/02
Mould fears freeze court files
Legal system faces delays
Daryl Slade
More than 170,000 files and millions of pages of documents have been virtually sealed in the basement of Calgary's Court of Queen's Bench.
Lawyers and the public cannot access the files, except in an emergency, after tests earlier this year came back positive for spores of stachybotrys chartarum, the same toxic mould that caused the Alberta Court of Appeal to close its doors more than a year ago.
http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/story.asp?id={86671314-E3C2-4F7F-A4C7-8D38983DB16A}



National Post 03/09/02
Going overboard on privacy
National Post
Statistics Canada is fighting to guard the privacy of Canadians. But there used to be a limit to how far the agency could go to protect census records. Until recently, the National Archives of Canada would release historical census data after 92 years, a policy comparable to the 72-year and 100-year cut-off points in the United States and Britain respectively. The 92-year rule was applied to Canada's 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 censuses. Such data is a mine of precious information for historians, genealogists and others.
http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/story.html?f=/stories/20020309/287271.html



The Times 03/11/02
Household dustbins yield easy pickings for card fraudsters
By Mark Atherton
ONE in five domestic rubbish bins contains enough discarded information to enable thieves to defraud householders, according to a study published today.
The study, carried out with Nottingham City Council by the credit reference agency Experian, shows how careless most households are with information that they should keep confidential.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-232342,00.html



Los Angeles Times 03/11/02
Identity Theft Draws Scrutiny
Law enforcement: Investigators say the fraudulent use of consumer credit data is
Ventura County's fastest growing crime.
By HOLLY J. WOLCOTT
http://www.latimes.com/technology/business/innovati...017950mar11.story?coll=la-business-recent_tech_news



CBS11 03/13/02
State agency limiting collection of birth defect data
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) _ Funding problems are forcing a state agency to curtail its collection of birth defect information from two regions.
The state Department of Health, which began a registry seven years ago to identify spina bifida and other physical birth defects, says it will limit collection in an area that includes the Panhandle and stop it in Northeast Texas.
http://www.cbs11tv.com/StoryDisplay.asp?StoryID=8376



WIRED 03/13/02
Support for ID Cards Waning
By Julia Scheeres
Support for a national ID card, which hit an all-time high after the Sept. 11 attacks, appears to be fading, according to a nationwide poll released Tuesday.
A survey by Gartner Inc. found that 41 percent of Americans opposed a national identification system, while 26 percent backed the idea.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,51000,00.html


BBC NEWS 03/15/02
Smile for the computer
BY Ivan Noble
It is unnerving enough to walk around a trade fair and see your own face projected on a giant screen.
But it is even more unnerving when a computer instantly spots your face on the picture,
circles it in yellow and checks it in seconds against a database of known troublemakers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1874000/1874738.stm



Government Technology March 2002
Off the Record
Federal and state courts are beginning to set policies for protecting personal information in electronic public records, but doing so is a delicate balancing act.
By Harry Hammitt - March 2002
When the U.S. Judicial Conference adopted a policy on access and privacy of court records last September, many observers viewed it as a crucial breakthrough in developing similar policies on the state level. There has been movement in many states, but progress overall has been slow and continues to be sporadic and hesitant. Last November, for instance, Florida, long considered a national leader in access to public records, decided to place a moratorium on Internet access to court records.
http://www.govtech.net/magazine/story.phtml?id=3030000000007588


CNNMoney 2/27/02
Dumping old tax records
The IRS can audit you for years to come. Know the rules before trashing your files.
By Staff Writer Sarah Max
http://money.cnn.com/2002/02/27/taxes/q_taxrecords/



Denver Business Journal 03/08/02
Demand is on for easier-to-understand documents
Paula Moore Denver Business Journal
Arvada businessman Fred Holden balked at signing a new contract regarding his
accounts at U.S. Bank in January because of one convoluted paragraph in the
document.
It read, in part: "We may divide your checking account into two subaccounts. ...
You cannot directly access the nontransaction subaccount, but you agree that we
may automatically, without a specific request from you, initiate individual transfers
of funds between subaccounts from time to time at no cost to you. ... We must
reserve the right to require not less than seven days' notice of withdrawal from the
checking transaction subaccount and the nontransaction subaccount even though
we do not intend to use it."
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2002/03/11/story3.html



San Diego Times-Union 03/10/02
Museum keeps Vista in touch with its past By Pat Stein
Pat Stein is a free-lance writer from Cardiff.
VISTA – Old-fashioned farm implements, photos of founding families and early businesses, Native American tools, turn-of-the-century clothing, adobe bricks from early dwellings and archival information on Rancho Guajome and Rancho Buena Vista – all of which are part of Vista's history – are on display at the Vista Historical Museum.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20020310-9999_z1mi10wewere.html



GovExec.com  03/11/02
GAO calls for a single report on paperwork reduction
By Tanya N. Ballard
tballard@govexec.com
A new General Accounting Office report says the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) needs a strategic plan outlining how it will manage federal records and ensure that federal agencies comply with a legislative mandate to reduce paperwork.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0302/031102t1.htm



AllAfrica.com 03/12/02
Savannah: Appeal Court Orders, NDIC to Certify Documents
Vanguard (Lagos)
http://allafrica.com/stories/200203120501.html



About.com 03/08/02
Web Search Tip of the Day
The Lighter Side of Google
by Kevin Elliott
Easter Eggs. Funky seasonal logos. Googlewhacking. Zeitgeist.
The tech folk at Google, as well as the enthusiastic community of Google fans, know how to have fun. And you can get involved in the shenanigans, too.
http://websearch.about.com/library/searchtips/bltotd020308.htm



Washington Post 03/12/02
Probe Spawns Unparalleled Intelligence-Sharing
By Walter Pincus and Dan Eggen
For a glimpse into the new world of U.S. intelligence gathering since Sept. 11, consider the meandering path of a simple telephone number.
Retrieved from the rubble of Afghanistan -- whether from an address book, a computer hard drive or a scribbled note -- this hypothetical telephone number is first reviewed by Defense Intelligence Agency analysts at Bagram air base, north of Kabul.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10755-2002Mar11.html




Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 03/13/02
Open records campaign proved costly, frustrating
By Gretchen McKay
When Bruce Glidden read in the paper that the Upper St. Clair School District was
discussing spending millions of dollars to either renovate or rebuild its high school,
he was concerned. How would it affect his taxes?
http://www.post-gazette.com/neigh_north/20020313nfirstamendment0313p3.asp



ZDNet News 03/14/02
Schools find time for file-swapping
By Gwendolyn Mariano
Special to ZDNet News
After an initial shock, U.S. universities are learning to live with file swapping among students on campus, despite legal risks and the heavy demands such activities place on computer networks.
When Napster burst onto the Net about two years ago, some campus network administrators blocked the software to avoid lawsuits and conserve resources. Now the legal threats to universities have receded and many of the technical problems that once plagued networks are being solved, giving network administrators more options when setting peer-to-peer usage policies, some college officials say.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-859739.html



New York Times 03/14/02
Making Sure Your Laptop Won't Stray
By DAVID POGUE
THERE'S a lot to like about laptops lately. They're small and light, they have big, brilliant screens, and they let you get work done without being bolted down to one spot. Unfortunately, you, the upstanding citizen, aren't the only one who finds them attractive. About 480,000 times a year, bad guys find them desirable, too — and
laughably easy to steal.
But if modern technology makes laptops juicy targets, modern technology can protect them. The high-tech world has rushed to the aid of worried laptoppers with some fascinating antitheft technologies that make it much less likely that you'll lose your laptop — and, perhaps more important, the files on it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/14/technology/circuits/14STAT.html



The MetroWest Daily News 03/14/02
Ancient town records give Holliston Town Clerk lesson in history
By John Johnson
Thursday, March 14, 2002
HOLLISTON - For the past month, Town Hall employees have been going through the backbreaking process of packing up every item and sifting through decades worth of documents and dust.
The 200-year-old Washington Street Town Hall will be given a $3 million renovation over the next year and everything inside the building has to be moved.
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/local_regional/holl_history03142002.htm



Beaver County Times 03/15/02
Doubling records storage space called an interim fix
By Bob Bauder
BEAVER - The Beaver County Commissioners on Wednesday agreed to double the size of records storage space at a Wampum limestone mine, but they said the measure is only a temporary fix for a complicated and growing problem.
"All we're doing now is buying another closet to put more stuff in," said Commissioner
Charlie Camp. "The commissioners are getting involved in something that should be a
row officer problem."
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=3551981&BRD=2305&PAG=461&dept_id=478569&rfi=6



St. Louis Post-Dispatch 03/16/02
Outdated technology hinders Immigration Service
By Karen Branch-Brioso
Post-Dispatch Washingtion bureau
WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush said he was stunned last week when a Florida flight school received visa approval notices for two terrorists - six months after the men crashed airliners into the World Trade Center towers.
Attorney General John Ashcroft called for an investigation.
"Fortunately, I only damaged the television set in a minor way when I got the news," Ashcroft said.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf...20technology%20hinders%20Immigration%20Service%20





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