Category Archives: Privacy

Privacy and Validity

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Eric Boehm, in a recent Watchdog.org post, noted some concerns about Obamacare.

Thanks to new regulations that are part of the federal Affordable Care Act, patients will be asked to disclose more personal information to their doctors—including how often they have sex and how with how many sexual partners.

And once they do, it won’t really be personal information any more.

Similar questions exist for drug use history, and the questions are required of all doctors, from your dermatologist or osteopath to your GP—regardless of the questions’ relevance to the health problem that brought you to the doctor.

On top of that, as Goldwater Institute lawyer, Christina Sandefur, says,

Once you’ve shared your information with a private third party, the Supreme Court has ruled that is fair game for the government[.]

Apocalyptic?  Likely (the Supremes’ rulings on the related matters didn’t exactly say that), but it can’t be casually discounted.  Additionally,

Doctors and hospitals who refuse to participate could be cut off from some federal funds, and individuals who decline to share sensitive information may have to pay the fines…outlined in the federal health care law.

Regardless of the validity of the concerns in Boehm’s column, people—and doctors—will react to those concerns.  Which raises this set of questions:

What will be the validity of the data collected?  At what rate will patients, to protect their privacy while satisfying (their perception of) the letter of the law, falsify their data—deny drug use to their dermatologist, make up answers to questions about their sex lives?  How will the government reconcile patient-provided data that conflict from their dermatologist to their cardiologist to their GP?

I Wonder

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…whether this might be doable in the US.  An English gentleman has a solution to those annoying cold calls from someone, or some robot, wanting to pitch you this or collect your personal information for that.

A man annoyed by cold callers has turned the tables by setting up his own premium rate number which earns him money.

Lee Beaumont said he paid £10 plus VAT to set up his personal 0871 line in November 2011 and has made £300 from calls he has received since.

It certainly has had a useful effect from my perspective:

…fewer calls, falling from up to 30 per month last year to 16 so far this month.

Hmm….

Closing a Business is a Felony

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Justice James Clark McReynolds wrote 75 years ago, in a dissent from a Commerce Clause-impacting labor case, this in part:

We are told that Congress may protect the “stream of commerce….”  Therefore it is said he may be prevented from doing anything which may interfere with its flow.
…
May a mill owner be prohibited from closing his factory or discontinuing his business because so to do would stop the flow of products to and from his plant in interstate commerce?

Apparently he can, when the stream of commerce’s products include government’s ability to spy on its citizen employers.

Again, Progress

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EEOC v Freeman concerned an events company that used [criminal and credit] background checks in employment decisions between July 2006 and August 2011. The company had experienced problems with employee drug use, embezzlement, and workplace violence, and saw background checks as a legitimate way to screen applicants.

US District Judge Roger Titus scored the agency for…putting employers “in the ‘Hobson’s choice’ of ignoring criminal history and credit background, thus exposing themselves to potential liability for criminal and fraudulent acts committed by employees, on the one hand, or incurring the wrath of the EEOC for having utilized information deemed fundamental by most employers.”

And if that wasn’t a clear enough message, he continued: “Something more, far more, than what is relied upon by the EEOC in this case must be utilized to justify a disparate impact claim based upon criminal history and credit checks.  To require less, would be to condemn the use of common sense, and this is simply not what the discrimination laws of this country require.”

There’s more to this:

[T]he [EEOC] didn’t show that Freeman Co discriminated against black applicants by using criminal-background checks or credit checks in its hiring process.

Well, duh.  The judge went on:

The story of the present action has been that of a theory in search of facts to support it.  But there are simply no facts here to support [the EEOC’s claim that black applicants were improperly discriminated against].

Freeman has 4,100 full-time and 25,000 to 30,000 part-time employees; that part-time to full-time ratio is a potful of turnover—which puts a premium on those background checks.

Progress, indeed.

Another Reason to Shoot Down Drones

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Deer Trail, CO, is looking at passing an ordinance allowing its residents to shoot down drones.  It seems those good folks have a proper disdain for government fishing expeditions masquerading as “surveillance.”

But it’s not just the government that’s intruding objectionably.

When Tina Turner got married at her estate in Switzerland over the weekend, she wanted to keep paparazzi away.  But photographers used drones and other aircraft to get the exclusives they [wanted].

And [emphasis added]

Drones are gradually becoming established in Germany as a tool of photographers and television crews….  Drones are cheaper and quieter than helicopters and can be navigated unnoticed over gardens or in front of windows.

And

“They can be very helpful—it works well in the US,” says Heiko Schoenborn of the photo agency WENN.

Maybe Deer Trail should expand its target list.