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Patient’s increasingly indicate that they want to communicate with their physicians via e-mail. However, there are major impediments to this process, including medical liability issues, patient privacy concerns, and billing considerations. However, according to this press release from the eRisk Working Group for Healthcare, new unified guidelines for physician-patient e-mail are now available that have …
Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School have published a new report on Web censorship: Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China. From the abstract: “The authors are collecting data on the methods, scope, and depth of selective barriers to Internet access through Chinese networks. …
Amnesty International has published a well researched report on the impact of state controls on Internet access to one of world’s fasted growing population of users. The report provides a timeline that documents the imposition of various controls and regulations on Web access since its introduction to the public in 1995, and their impact on …
FatWallet.com has taken up the fight against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act with their claim that “a group of national retailers forced FatWallet.com to remove Day After Thanksgiving sales information from its site. In letters sent to FatWallet, each retailer claimed that the Copyright Act gives it a monopoly over this price data.”
Although primarily a symbolic action, the Eugene City Council passed a resolution, with impetus from 2,000 citizen signatures on a petition, stating the city’s opposition to the USA Patriot Act. See also my other posting on a growing movement by municipalities to oppose the Patriot Act.
This Forbes article addresses the changing landscape of ISP liability in regard to providing the government with access to personal data on subscribers, as well as to their IT infrastructures, to facilitate surveillance of customers. The legal issues inherent in such actions have shifted significantly with the passage of the Homeland Security Bill (H.R 5005), …
If you are interested in the President’s e-government plan, this OPM site provides an overview of the E-Clearance, E-Payroll, Enterprise Human Resources Initiative, E-Training and Recruitment One-Stop projects, including objectives, current status and future milestones.
The ACLU and EPIC have secured an order from Judge Huvelle, U.S. District Court, D.C., in response to their FOIA complaint for Patriot Act related documents. A list of those documents the DOJ will release must be provided to the groups by January 15, 2003, however, the agency has indicated that documents will be withheld …
This FTC site on the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act – Financial Privacy and Pretexting, is an excellent resource on the topic. It provides links to the code, rules and regs, press releases, business guidance documents, and official state documents.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published a paper by Seth Finkelstein titled How To Win (DMCA) Exemptions And Influence Policy, which includes key links concerning the act and carefully documents specific directions and references essential to apply for an exemption.
Data on health issues including abortions and contraception have been removed from government web sites, and complaints are escalating that such actions are motivated by the President’s political agenda. See my previous posting on this topic here, which includes references to Congressional concerns over this specific pattern of censoring health related data.
In 1997, then Senator Ashcroft of Missouri published a statement called, Keep Big Brother’s Hands Off the Internet. Fast forward to the Patriot Act.