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• News Archive: August 2009

News Archive: August 2009

The views represented in these articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, the Privacy Act Program, or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

THE SCOOP for August 26, 2009

• ABC's of Web 2.0
  Best Syndication - August 19, 2009
  "A...[is] for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML [AJAX], and is a web development technique for creative interactive web applications."

• Allende seeks Brazil documents on '73 Chile coup
  ABC News - August 18, 2009
  "The daughter of overthrown Chilean President Salvador Allende requested via Twitter on Tuesday that Brazil open any secret archives that could shed light on any role it played in the 1973 coup that killed her father."

• Army uses a wiki to let personnel rewrite field manuals
  Government Computer News - August 20, 2009
  "The test began last month, using wiki software to let any of the Army's personnel, ... from private on up, add to one of the manuals, some of which deal with instructions on aspects of serving in Iraq and other war zones. The idea is to gain input from those in the field rather than the traditional top-down method of writing manuals."

• Business Leaders Must Take Control of the Privacy Discussion
  Advertising Age - August 19, 2009
  "The digital environment not only collects more and more private data, but it also offers marketing many tools for evaluation and promotion online and offline. But it raises concerns whether privacy needs more protection."

• Converting Paper Into PDF Files
  New York Times - August 5, 2009
  "Many scanners and multifunction printer-scanner-copier units include software that lets you save a scanned image as a PDF file. If the scanner's software includes this ability, your task may be as simple as choosing to save the image as a PDF instead of a JPEG or other image format."

• DOJ indicts 3 in largest identity theft prosecution in US history
  Jurist - August 18, 2009
  "Albert Gonzales and two unidentified Russian hackers are accused of stealing more than 130 million credit and debit card numbers by hacking into computer systems of companies including credit card payment processor Heartland Payment Systems, convenience store chain 7-Eleven, and supermarket chain Hannaford Brothers."

• E-health committee calls for multiple groups to certify records systems
  NextGov - August 14, 2009
  "The top federal panel that sets policies for electronic health records so that a national system can be adopted made recommendations on Friday that would allow multiple organizations to certify electronic record products instead of the one certifying body that exists today."

• Identity theft 101: What is medical ID theft?
  Washington Examiner - August 3, 2009
  "Medical identity theft occurs when an identity thief uses the personal identifiers such as a social security number of a victim to obtain medical care, services, products, insurance benefits or insurance."

• Obama's cookies may not go down so easy
  San Francisco Chronicle - August 14, 2009
  "The OMB wants to use ... multisession cookies 'for use as persistent identifiers, which track users over multiple visits with the intent of remembering data, settings, or preferences unique to that visitor for purposes beyond what is needed for web analytics.'"

• So, you have one hour to do disaster planning ...
  NC Times - August 19, 2009
  "There's a brush fire bearing down on your small business. You've been told you have one hour to evacuate — which means you have one hour to come up with and execute a disaster preparation plan."

• State now requiring top employees to archive e-mails
  KTUU (Anchorage) - August 17, 2009
  "The e-mail retention policy instructs all executive branch employees to conduct official business through the state's e-mail system whenever possible."

• Treasures From an Underground Trove
  New York Times - August 18, 2009
  "[S]ince the early 1980s just one man, William C. Bonner, has been the museum's primary denizen, becoming intimately familiar with its holdings: more than 11 million images richly documenting the life of the 20th century, from Uganda to the Mississippi Delta to remote lamaseries near the Mongolian border."

THE SCOOP for August 19, 2009

• 78 Percent of Tweets Either Conversations or Pointless Babble
  Government Technology - August 17, 2009
  "Out of the 2,000 tweets sampled, the winner, with 40.55 percent, was pointless babble. Conversational tweets -- people actually conversing over Twitter, came in second at 37.55 percent."

• Amid Privacy Concerns, White House Shuts Down Health-Care Tip Line
  Washington Post - August 18, 2009
  "Following complaints from Republicans, the White House has shut down a two-week-old e-mail tip line launched to take reports from citizens of 'disinformation about health insurance reform.'"
  

• Did Arlington National Cemetery break the law?
  Salon.Com - August 11, 2009
  "Arlington National Cemetery this summer mailed to a Florida contractor two computer servers containing the personal data -- including Social Security numbers -- of thousands of deceased soldiers."

• E-Discovery Fears May Explain Why Recession Didn't Spur Litigation
  ABA Journal - August 18, 2009
  "Several surveys show that litigation is flat or declining, the National Law Journal reports. One of the major reasons, the story says, is that general counsel don't want to spend money on litigation, partly because they fear the increasing cost of electronic discovery."

• Health care plan stresses quality, affordability
  Bradenton (FL) Herald - August 18, 2009
  "The Rand Corp. ... found that if most hospitals and doctors' offices adopted electronic health records, it could save up to $77 billion. The electronic records should reduce hospital stays, avoid unnecessary testing and provide for more appropriate drug use."

• Identity theft 101: what is new account fraud?
  Washington Examiner - July 23, 2009
  "New account fraud occurs when an identity thief commits identity theft by opening new financial accounts by using the name and social security number of the victim."

• Media Vexation: How Did We Get Here?
  Infonomics - July/August 2009
  "We all know that electronic documents (and records) are everywhere. We are swamped by them. What innovations got us to this point? Knowing where we come from can help us identify the correct path forward."

• National Historical Publications and Records Commission Receives Top SAA Award
  PR Newswire/US Newswire - August 18, 2009
  "The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the grant-making affiliate of the National Archives that awards grants to archives and historical records projects, has received the 2009 Distinguished Service Award from the Society of American Archivists (SAA)."

• The Rise of Gov 2.0
  OMB Watch - August 18, 2009
  "New e-government tools have been deployed to keep track of government spending, gather public input on policymaking, and convey the status of government projects. These tools may hold the potential to give Main Street the same voice in government traditionally reserved for K Street."

• States Look to E-Prescribing for More Efficient Health Care
  ARMA Washington Policy Brief - August 2009
  "States are using innovative strategies to address the issue of integrated electronic health records and the electronic exchange of health information, according to a new issue brief from the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices."

• U.S. Bares 'Alien Files' Kept on Immigrants
  New York Times - August 11, 2009
  "Under an agreement signed this year, the files, on some 53 million people, will be gradually turned over by the Department of Homeland Security to the National Archives and Records Administration, beginning in 2010."

• You Deleted Your Cookies? Think Again
  Wired - August 10, 2009
  "More than half of the internet's top websites use a little known capability of Adobe's Flash plug-in to track users and store information about them, but only four of them mention the so-called Flash Cookies in their privacy policies, UC Berkeley researchers reported Monday."

THE SCOOP for August 12, 2009

• And You Thought a Prescription Was Private
  New York Times - August 8, 2009
  "Like many other people, Ms. Krinsk thought that her prescription information was private. But in fact, prescriptions ...are a commodity bought and sold in a murky marketplace, often without the patients' knowledge or permission."

• e-Discovery Policy Could Have Stopped Steroid Leaks
  InformationWeek - August 11, 2009
  "From Alex Rodriguez to David Ortiz, the same question is asked every time the name of a big-time baseball player on "the list" is leaked to the press: how come the records weren't destroyed to begin with?"

• Electronic Records For All Patients Mandated By 2014
  Space Coast Medicine and Healthy Living - August 3, 2009
  "Many who have worked in the medical record industry have been waiting for decades to have an increased governmental push towards adoption of electronic record systems. To date, development and adoption of these systems ... has been an industry led initiative that has proceeded with fits and starts."

• Identity theft 101: what is existing account fraud?
  Washington Examiner - July 21, 2009
  "The most recognized type of identity theft is "existing account" fraud. This type of identity fraud occurs when an identity thief misuses an existing credit, debit, bank, credit union, trading, retirement or other account of a victim."

• John Quincy Adams, Twitterer?
  New York Times - August 5, 2009
  "They may be two centuries old, but, written with staccato-like brevity, entries from one of Adams's diaries resemble tweets sufficiently that they began appearing Wednesday on Twitter."

• Managing the Web 2.0 life cycle
  KM World - August 3, 2009
  "The Federal Records Act ... requires federal agencies to document their functions, policies and essential transactions. 'The definition of what is a federal record under this Act has not changed in almost 60 years, even though the methods through which they are created have evolved,' says Jason R. Baron, director of litigation for ... (NARA)."

• Obama administration asks Supreme Court to block release of detainee abuse photos
  Jurist - August 8, 2009
  "According to the government, Exemption 7(F) of the Freedom of Information Act ... is applicable ... reasoning that: The court of appeals' view that Congress intended to require disclosure when a death ... could reasonably be expected to result if the particular victims could not be sufficiently identified in advance disregards Exemption 7(F)'s fundamental concern with human life and safety and misapprehends the practical balance that Congress struck in that exemption."

• OMG formulates records-management standard
  Government Computer News - August 6, 2009
  "Agency record managers looking into establishing a formal system of managing records over their entire lifecycle (and across different platforms) may want to take a look at this proposed standard."

• Sloppy Redaction: To Err Is Automated
  LAW.COM - August 7, 2009
  "Re[d]action failure often happens when someone uses software features not designed for redaction to cover up information, not realizing there are ways to recover blocked out information."

• U.S. Web-Tracking Plan Stirs Privacy Fears
  Washington Post - August 11, 2009
  "Some privacy groups say the proposal amounts to a 'massive' and unexplained shift in government policy. In a statement Monday, American Civil Liberties Union spokesman Michael Macleod-Ball said the move could 'allow the mass collection of personal information of every user of a federal government website.'"

• Web Squared: When Web 2.0 Meets Internet of Things
  ReadWriteWeb - August 5, 2009
  "The term 'web squared' is defined in the report as 'web meets world.' The squared bit also references that 'the Web opportunity is no longer growing arithmetically; it's growing exponentially.'"

THE SCOOP for August 5, 2009

• Electronic Records: EMR vs. EHR
  Advance - July 29, 2009
  "[A]nalysts, vendors, journalists and practitioners all are guilty of using the terms electronic medical record (EMR) and electronic health record (EHR) interchangeably as if they are one and the same. In fact, these are two different terms that address two different sets of ... features and capabilities."

• FDsys makes America's documents immediate and permanent
  Government Computer News - July 31, 2009
  "The Federal Digital System (FDsys), the first iteration of which went live earlier this year, offers the public access to documents from all three branches of government through a single portal. It is a Web site of sweeping scope."

• Health care's future may already exist
  CNN Money - July 25, 2009
  "It's time for your 2015 annual physical. But your family doctor already knows all your vital readings from the self-tests you administered. If she sees any problems, she'll send your electronic records to a specialist and coordinate the way you're treated."

• Identity theft 101: What is the Red Flags Rule?
  Washington Examiner - July 20, 2009
  "The Red Flags Rule is a U.S. federal law that requires most every business and organization to develop and implement an identity theft prevention program. The purpose of the identity theft prevention program is to authenticate the identity of customers to reduce incidences of identity theft."

• Iraqi Media Group Seeks Passage Of Freedom Of Information Act
  Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty - August 4, 2009
  "Ziad al-Ajili, the director of the Iraqi Journalistic Freedom Observatory, told RFI on the sidelines of a workshop on investigative journalism in Baghdad last week that the workshop will focus on getting the Iraqi parliament to expedite a Freedom of Information Act."

• Marketing Groups Release Comprehensive Privacy Principles
  ARMA Washington Policy Brief - August 2009
  "A group of the nation's largest media and marketing trade associations released self-regulatory principles to protect consumer privacy in ad-supported interactive media that requires advertisers and websites to clearly inform consumers about data collection practices and enable them to exercise control over that information."

• Panel wants privacy protection for electronic medical records
  Federal Computer Week - July 24, 2009
  "A federal advisory panel on patient privacy wants encryption, strong access controls and audits to protecting patients' medical records under the program advanced by the economic stimulus law, according to the co-chair of the group."

• Six More Keys to Better Searching
  LAW.COM - July 29, 2009
  "Last month [Crafting a More Effective Keyword Search {6/24/09 Scoop}], I talked about how judges are setting new standards for e-discovery keyword searches. This month we cover the next six steps."

• This Article Will Self-destruct: Tool To Make Online Personal Data Vanish
  Science Daily - July 22, 2009
  "The University of Washington has developed a way to make such information expire. After a set time period, electronic communications such as e-mail, Facebook posts and chat messages would automatically self-destruct, becoming irretrievable from all Web sites, inboxes, outboxes, backup sites and home computers."

• Web 2.0 enables transparency goals
  Federal Computer Week - July 31, 2009
  "Government can achieve goals with minimal effort thanks to new technology tools."

• Web 2.0 tools will change corporate content creation, analyst says
  NetworkWorld - July 31, 2009
  "New work methods will include collaborative authoring with Web 2.0 and social networking tools. Users will also have to consider how to handle documents that are perpetually updated and how to strike a balance between quick publishing and edited/approved content."

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