I don't have all the details, but it looks like an employee at one of the hospital's vendors did something really stupid:
A medical privacy breach led to the public posting on a commercial Web site of data for 20,000 emergency room patients at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., including names and diagnosis codes, the hospital has confirmed. The information stayed online for nearly a year.
Since discovering the breach last month, the hospital has been investigating how a detailed spreadsheet made its way from one of its vendors, a billing contractor identified as Multi-Specialty Collection Services, to a Web site called Student of Fortune, which allows students to solicit paid assistance with their schoolwork.
Gary Migdol, a spokesman for Stanford Hospital and Clinics, said the spreadsheet first appeared on the site on Sept. 9, 2010, as an attachment to a question about how to convert the data into a bar graph.
One can easily see how this happened: someone on the billing contractor's staff was taking a class of some kind and decided to use real, live, HIPAA-protected data for a project. My law-school Wills instructor, Jerry Leitner, would explain this by the "omnibus explanation," the thing that explains nearly every human endeavor that ends badly: stupidity.
The article mentions Stanford got fined $250,000 from the breach. I wonder if they'll be able to get a contribution award from the contractor?
David Frum is calling Rick Perry's statement last night about Social Security "the mother of all unforced errors:"
Perhaps not since George McGovern’s annihilation at the hands of Richard Nixon in 1972 has a candidate’s Primary base been so alienated from the center of American political thought as the Tea Party is today. Make no mistake: no candidate who doesn’t convincingly throw the red meat to the Tea Party audiences will have a sliver of a chance of getting nominated.
I’m not going to go so far as to predict the result of a Presidential Election that is 14 months away, but I will posit that while “Change we can Believe in” might be a somewhat tired slogan by that point, it sure as hell beats “Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme”
That, and his complete misunderstanding of Galileo's trial kind of made the evening.
Via Fallows, a condemnation of both political parties by a former GOP operative:
The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.
It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.
Far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for Senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a Republican filibuster. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that Washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.
Th[e Republican] tactic of inducing public distrust of government is not only cynical, it is schizophrenic. For people who profess to revere the Constitution, it is strange that they so caustically denigrate the very federal government that is the material expression of the principles embodied in that document. This is not to say that there is not some theoretical limit to the size or intrusiveness of government; I would be the first to say there are such limits, both fiscal and Constitutional. But most Republican officeholders seem strangely uninterested in the effective repeal of Fourth Amendment protections by the Patriot Act, the weakening of habeas corpus and self-incrimination protections in the public hysteria following 9/11 or the unpalatable fact that the United States has the largest incarcerated population of any country on earth.
The U.S. usually corrects itself when one side over-reaches. I think we still have worse ahead of us, but so far, I don't believe we'll wind up as Weimar did. I hope.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the first circuit (comprising Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island) last week ruled that police do not have immunity against lawsuits when sued for arresting someone pointing a camera at them. Though only a procedural matter in the middle of an ongoing case, the ruling made it clear that police aren't allowed to you for videotaping them in public:
For those of you not familiar with Simon Glik's case, Glik was arrested on October 1, 2007, after openly using his cell phone to record three police officers arresting a suspect on Boston Common. In return for his efforts to record what he suspected might be police brutality -- in a pattern that is now all too familiar -- Glik was charged with criminal violation of the Massachusetts wiretap act, aiding the escape of a prisoner and disturbing the peace.
Glik filed suit in federal court against the officers and the City of Boston under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act. Glik alleged that the police officers violated his First Amendment right to record police activity in public and that the officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights by arresting him without probable cause to believe a crime had occurred.
Naturally, the police officers moved to dismiss on the basis of qualified immunity, but [the district court judge] was having none of that, denying the motion from the bench and ruling that "in the First Circuit . . . this First Amendment right publicly to record the activities of police officers on public business is established." The police officers then appealed to the First Circuit, but they have now struck out on appeal as well, with the First Circuit ruling that "Glik was exercising clearly-established First Amendment rights in filiming the officers in a public space, and that his clearly-established Fourth Amendment rights were violated by his arrest without probable cause."
The way U.S. law works, however, this ruling doesn't quite do what you might think. First, the 1st Circuit ruled on a procedural matter, not a substantive one; so while they clearly signaled how they would rule on the matter, they haven't actually ruled yet. Second, the ruling only binds the states within the circuit. Other circuits, including the 9th (which includes nine Western states including California), have ruled similarly; but some circuits haven't pronounced on anti-camera laws yet.
That said, I'd like to quote the Court's explanation of why recording police in public places is legal (citations removed):
The filming of government officials engaged in their
duties in a public place, including police officers performing
their responsibilities, fits comfortably within these principles.
Gathering information about government officials in a form that can
readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment
interest in protecting and promoting "the free discussion of
governmental affairs." ...
Moreover, as the Court has noted, "[f]reedom of expression has
particular significance with respect to government because '[i]t is
here that the state has a special incentive to repress opposition
and often wields a more effective power of suppression.'" .... This is particularly true of law enforcement officials,
who are granted substantial discretion that may be misused to deprive individuals of their liberties. .... Ensuring the public's
right to gather information about their officials not only aids in
the uncovering of abuses, ...but also may have a
salutary effect on the functioning of government more generally.
I hope this interpretation gains wider acceptance in the circuits.
In a move that brings progressives and libertarians together better than a runaway defense budget, Gotham has banned dogs from bars:
Since the health department adopted a letter grade system for bars and restaurants last year, bar owners say, health inspectors are allowing no wiggle room for four-legged patrons.
The stricter enforcement is apparently bringing to an end a rich tradition of dog-friendly bars in New York.
The health department issued 469 violations for live animals in food-service sites from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, though the agency did not provide a breakdown of the different kinds of offending animals.
During inspections, many owners said they were surprised to learn that dogs were not allowed even in outdoor seating areas. Neither does a bar’s dearth of actual food products provide any cover. “Beer, wine and spirits have always been classified as food,” a department spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail. Only service dogs are permitted in spaces that serve food or drink of any kind.
Chicago allows dogs on outdoor patios when the owners pay a modest fee, but officially prohibits dogs in bars as well. However, I can't imagine the Chicago health department cracking down. There'd be outrage—not just from the dog owners, but also from the pub owners, who might get mad enough to stop paying bribes other license fees.
Oh, the humanity.
The Economist Gulliver blog makes a good case that media coverage of Irene was appropriate for the threat:
Hurricanes are serious business. They have the capacity to cause billions of dollars in damage and kill hundreds or thousands of people. They have political consequences, too—no politician wants to be blamed for a disaster the way President George W. Bush was after Hurricane Katrina. Moreover, it is very unusual for a hurricane to hit America's north-east, where around one sixth of Americans live and a quarter of the country's economic output is produced. An unusual, potentially disastrous event that was certain to affect millions of Americans and put billions of dollars of property at risk is just the sort of thing the media should be covering. Just because Irene wasn't the disaster that some Americans feared doesn't mean it wasn't important to cover it.
Another way to look at it, just because Irene didn't cause more damage doesn't mean the preparations and coverage were wrong. Just two days ago it looked like Manhattan, Queens, Nassau, Suffolk, Hoboken, and Jersey City—places where millions of people live just a few meters above sea level—could experience devastating damage from a storm surge. This is, remember, the first hurricane to hit New York City in about a century.
I'm very happy the storm did as little damage as it did. And even though it turned out to be unnecessary, I'm glad Mayor Bloomberg and Governors Cuomo and Christie took the actions they did to prepare for what looked like, earlier this weekend, an unprecedented disaster.
Yesterday I wrote about a criminal trial here in Chicago in which a woman was charged with felony eavesdropping for recording a conversation with two police officers. Under Illinois law, this "crime" carries the same penalties as rape and manslaughter. The law needs to go, whether through repeal (unlikely) or being overturned by a Federal appeals court (more likely).
Good news for Tiawanda Moore this afternoon, but bad news for Illinois civil liberties: she got acquitted:
[A] Criminal Court jury quickly repudiated the prosecution's case, taking less than an hour to acquit Moore on both eavesdropping counts.
"The two cops came across as intimidating and insensitive," said one juror, Ray Adams, 57, a pharmacist from the western suburbs. "Everybody thought it was just a waste of time and that (Moore) never should have been charged."
The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit in Chicago last year challenging the law, saying it was unconstitutional to prevent people from openly recording police officers working in public. A federal judge dismissed the suit, but the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear oral arguments next month in the ACLU's appeal of the decision.
The 7th Circuit has a reputation for evenness. We can hope, at least; but the ACLU's case will probably take another few years to finish.
Instead of writing a banal post about American Airlines' changes to their million-mile program, here's something one of my co-workers just brought to my attention. A woman is on trial in Illinois for secretly recording a conversation with a cop she alleges was trying to get her to drop a harassment case against another cop. Because the person she recorded was a police officer, however, the crime is a Class 1 felony—the same class that includes second-degree murder[1], rape[2], and carjacking[3]:
Tiawanda Moore, 20, is charged with two felony counts of eavesdropping on a public official for allegedly recording a four-minute portion of the Aug. 18, 2010, interview on her BlackBerry, which she had hidden in her lap.
Moore, of Hammond, Ind., was being interviewed at police headquarters about her complaint that a patrol officer had grabbed her breast and given her his phone number when he came to her boyfriend’s South Side apartment on a domestic disturbance call.
The American Civil Liberties Union has worked for years to get the law overturned. Their case against the Illinois States Attorney seeking to overturn the law is currently before the 7th Circuit. Updates as warranted.
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[1] i.e., unintentional homicide or manslaughter; see 720 ILCS 5/9-2(d)
[2] 720 ILCS 5/11‑1.20(b)(1)
[3] 720 ILCS 5/18-3(c)
According to a recent study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Tea Party supporters believe in "authoritarianism, libertarianism, fear of change, and negative attitudes toward immigrants and immigration:"
The study used polling of North Carolina and Tennessee, conducted by Public Policy Polling (D) in the Summer of 2010, and determined the cultural dispositions by measuring the responses of tea partiers to set questions. After PPP surveyed over 2,000 voters who were sympathetic to the Tea Party, researchers then reinterviewed almost 600 in the fall of 2010. Those interviews included everything from personality based queries like "Would you say it is more important that a child obeys his parents, or that he is responsible for his own actions?" to more political ones, like "Do you think immigrants who came into this country illegally but pay taxes and have not been arrested should be given the opportunity to become permanent legal residents?" The study also incudes interviews and short responses with ten participants at a Tea Party rally in Washington, NC.
In all seriousness, it's good that Prof. Perrin et al. got the data for this. For example, lest we confuse the Tea Party with latter-day Hamiltons and Madisons:
In our follow-up poll, 84% of those positive towards the TPM [Tea Party members] said the Constitution should be interpreted "as the Founders intended," compared to only 34% of other respondents. ... [But] support for Constitutional principles is not absolute. TPM supporters were twice as likely than others to favor a constitutional amendment banning flag burning; many also support efforts to overturn citizenship as defined by the Fourteenth Amendment.
In short: the Tea Party say they believe in the Constitution, but only the parts they like. In this way they carry on the populist, know-nothing tradition that has made America great since its founding.
As he starts to look like the GOP's nominee next year, let's pause and consider what Rick Perry—"Governor Goodhair" to Molly Ivins not so long ago—has actually done:
So where does the notion of a Texas miracle come from? Mainly from widespread misunderstanding of the economic effects of population growth.
For this much is true about Texas: It has, for many decades, had much faster population growth than the rest of America — about twice as fast since 1990. Several factors underlie this rapid population growth: a high birth rate, immigration from Mexico, and inward migration of Americans from other states, who are attracted to Texas by its warm weather and low cost of living, low housing costs in particular.
What Texas shows is that a state offering cheap labor and, less important, weak regulation can attract jobs from other states. I believe that the appropriate response to this insight is “Well, duh.” The point is that arguing from this experience that depressing wages and dismantling regulation in America as a whole would create more jobs — which is, whatever Mr. Perry may say, what Perrynomics amounts to in practice — involves a fallacy of composition: every state can’t lure jobs away from every other state.
Curse you, Krugman, and your logic! That's not what the GOP needs right now.