Update: Sounds like the arguments of a six year old...

Prime Healthcare defends its disclosure of patient records – are they begging for a federal and state prosecution or what?

By Dissent, January 7, 2012

There’s a follow-up to a situation I blogged about earlier this week where a patients’ records were revealed to media by executives of Shasta Regional Medical Center without explicit patient consent.

Michael Hiltzik provides an update to his previous coverage:

Prime Healthcare has responded, with a letter and a public statement, to my January 4 column about the flouting of patient confidentiality by its corporate office and two executives at its Shasta Regional Medical Center. In the response, Prime states for the record that it believes its disclosure of medical information about the patient, Darlene Courtois, was legal because she “voluntarily disclosed her medical records” to the investigative reporting organization California Watch. The company’s statement is here.

Read more on The Los Angeles Times.

Having read their statement, all I can say is “wow” and they should probably shut up before they step in it even more. In their statement, they write:

SRMC has reviewed the facts and circumstances surrounding the claim made by Mr. Hiltzik and determined, in consultation with legal counsel, that there has been no violation of federal and state privacy laws.

Well, they don’t get to make that determination, despite their assertion. The federal and state agencies or the courts make that determination. All they can really say is that they didn’t think they were violating any state or federal law and still don’t think they are.

But it gets worse (from my perspective). They go on to say:

By publicly engaging in these activities, SRMC was informed and believed that the patient waived her HIPAA rights and that in fact she wanted her medical information to be disclosed and examined. In addition, among other things, SRMC had a good faith belief that the disclosure, if any, was necessary to prevent or lessen a threat to the health and safety of the public.

How do they figure that SRMC was “informed” that the patient waived their responsibilities under HIPAA? Are they mind readers? Of course not. Perhaps they drew an inference, but an inference does not negate any legal obligations.

I think it’s ridiculous that they now throw in a “good faith belief” that their disclosure was necessary to prevent a threat to the health and safety of the public. The only clear threat I can see in the situation is a threat to their reputation. Are they arguing that if people believed the previous statements by California Watch they might avoid necessary care at SRMC?

I really think they’ve dug themselves into a deep hole on this one and it would have been better to say that their understanding was that if she talked, they could, too. They still would have been wrong under HIPAA (as I understand it, anyway), but their repeated insistence that they did nothing wrong legally is only inviting a smackdown by HHS and the state.

Update: Given a full range of capability, what is an appropriate level of response? Would you break his thumbs or screw up his credit rating?

Israel Says It Will Treat Online Credit Card Theft As It Would Terrorism

In the wake of the online theft of at least 6,000 credit card numbers belonging to Israelis, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said that "Israel has active capabilities for striking at those who are trying to harm it, and no agency or hacker will be immune from retaliatory action." Also at Reuters, with a few more details about the believed thief, known as OxOmar: "After Israeli media ran what they said were interviews conducted with OxOmar over email, the Haaretz newspaper said a blogger had tracked the hacker down and determined he was a 19-year-old citizen of the United Arab Emirates studying and working in Mexico."

What is the threshold for decertification? Are the vendors employing a Jedi mind trick? “These are not the failures you are looking for...”

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-57354354-245/e-ballot-device-for-presidential-vote-has-bugs-report-confirms/

E-ballot device for presidential vote has bugs, report confirms

The Formal Investigative Report issued late last month by the Electronic Assistance Commission (EAC), which certifies electronic voting equipment, issued a notice of noncompliance for the DS200 optical scanning device manufactured by Electronic Systems & Software (ES&S), but did not decertify the machine.

The report found three anomalies:

1. Intermittent screen freezes, system lockups, and shutdowns that prevent the voting system from operating in the manner in which it was designed
2. Failure to log all normal and abnormal voting system events
3. Skewing of the ballot, resulting in a negative effect on system accuracy

Specifically, the DS200 failed in some cases to record when the touch screen was calibrated or the system was powered on or off, failed to read votes correctly when a ballot was inserted at an angle, and accepted a voted ballot without recording the ballot on its internal counter and without recording the marks, according to the report.

More likely an AT&T-like tap at the collection point. More efficient. Much simpler to enable.

Leaked Memo Says Apple Provides Backdoor To Governments

"In a tweet early this morning, cybersecurity researcher Christopher Soghoian pointed to an internal memo of India's Military Intelligence that has been liberated by hackers and posted on the Net. The memo suggests that, "in exchange for the Indian market presence" mobile device manufacturers, including RIM, Nokia, and Apple (collectively defined in the document as "RINOA") have agreed to provide backdoor access on their devices. The Indian government then "utilized backdoors provided by RINOA" to intercept internal emails of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a U.S. government body with a mandate to monitor, investigate and report to Congress on 'the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship' between the U.S. and China. Manan Kakkar, an Indian blogger for ZDNet, has also picked up the story and writes that it may be the fruits of an earlier hack of Symantec. If Apple is providing governments with a backdoor to iOS, can we assume that they have also done so with Mac OS X?"

Something for the Criminal Justice students?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=26727

Document: ‘Black box’ data from Lt. Governor Murray’s crash

January 7, 2012 by Dissent

I’ve occasionally blogged about EDRs or “black box recorders” in cars. But have you ever seen their output or a report from one? I hadn’t. The Boston Globe published one such report after Massachusetts’ Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray was in an accident in a state vehicle. The findings contradicted his previous statements about the accident.

Anyway, you can read the report here. And do note the disclaimer section about what the instruments record and don’t record – and how crash reconstructionists need to be aware of certain limitations.

Very interesting chart. After Healthcare and Lawyers comes computer geeks and educators – I suspect someone isn't reading the numbers correctly.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/029196.html

January 07, 2012

WSJ - 2011 Jobs Snapshot - Unemployment Rate by Job

"The national U.S. unemployment rate is 8.5%, but that varies widely by what profession you might be in. The below chart shows the size of select industries and their unemployment rates. The table below shows all the occupations within those industries and their unemployment rates. Search the list to find what the unemployment rate is for your job."

Another tool for the “We don't need no stinking lawyers” folder?

Eulalyzer: Search & Clarify Terms And Conditions Of EULA Agreements

Usually the license agreements you agree to while signing up for a web service or installing software include many confusing portions that discourage you from reading everything. Here to make matters simpler is a desktop tool called EULAlyzer.

… When the app opens up you can either paste license agreements into it or click on an icon to indicate which window the agreement is open in.

Once the agreement has been detected, the app analyzes it and searches for ‘interesting’ words and terms that you should go over.

www.javacoolsoftware.com/eulalyzer.html

Also read related article: 4 Ways To Read & Understand An End User License Agreement (EULA) More Easily.

I know many instructors (you know who you are) that create brilliant, easy to read handouts on a wide variety of software and other topics just for the six or ten students in a class. Might as well get paid for the work you have already done...

Wizzley.com - Publish Your Articles And Be Paid

On Whizzley, you can become a publishing author for free, and submit your own articles as regularly as you want. You won't have to create your very own blog, and you won't have to worry about running it either. That'll be taken care of for you. You'll be free to focus on your writing, and on saying what you want to say using the best words you could ever use. And you'll be paid for your efforts, you'll get a permanent 50% to 60% share of royalties.