Pointers from moderator:
Debate about the medical records bill, now in the U.S. Senate, is
heating up. Supporters say that centralization of records will
facilitate medical research and make things easier for everybody.
They also say that the bill puts some rules for protecting privacy in
place, whereas now there are hardly any such rules.
Opponents of the bill point to such problems as unauthorized people
gaining access, overly broad powers for police and courts, and the
possibility of tying medical information to financial and other
information in other databases.
Please take the time to read a frightening TAP newsletter about the
bill, which is now on our ftp site in the Re-Legislation directory as
the file Medical-Records. I'll be adding interesting material to this
file as debate continues.
EPIC and TAP have both announced Web pages (I haven't had a chance to
read either one yet):
http://www.epic.org/privacy/medical/
http://www.essential.org/privacy/privacy.html
To get right into the thick of debate, subscribe to a mailing list TAP
set up about the bill. Send mail to •••@••.••• and put this in
the body of the message:
SUBSCRIBE MED-PRIVACY yourfirstname yourlastname
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Another U.S. issue that's re-emerging is digital telephony and
wire-tapping. You may remember that there was a major controversy
around this bill. According to a message from EPIC, implementation is
being delayed, and there are some in Congress who are trying to stop
it from going into effect. Meanwhile, some claim that the FBI has
even bigger plans than originally announced. See EPIC's Web page at:
http://www.epic.org/privacy/wiretap/
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The Internet User Consortium (a representative of which, Martin
Thompson, posts to our list regularly under the name
•••@••.•••) has a new newsletter called Northstar. To
subscribe, send mail to •••@••.••• with this in the body of
the message:
subscribe Northstar your name
Andy
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Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR)
You are encouraged to forward and cross-post messages for non-commercial use,
pursuant to any redistribution restrictions included in individual messages.
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