Today’s Washington Post has an interesting story about how the privacy regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are not being enforced:
The New York Times has a fascinating and frightening article on Internet shaming in China. From the article:
From CNET:
About 1.3 million customers of a Texas provider of student loans are at risk of ID fraud, after a contractor lost computer equipment with sensitive information on them.
The equipment, which was not identified, contains the names and Social Security numbers of the borrowers, the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan company said in a statement Tuesday. The hardware was lost by an employee of Hummingbird, a enterprise software company hired to prepare a document management system, it said.
One of the most common attitudes of those unconcerned about government surveillance or privacy invasions is “I’ve got nothing to hide.” I was talking the issue over one day with a few colleagues in my field, and we all agreed that thus far, those emphasizing the value of privacy had not been able to articulate an answer to the “nothing to hide” argument that would really register with people in the general public. In a thoughtful essay in Wired (cross posted at his blog), Bruce Schneier seeks to develop a response to this argument:
The AP reports an enormous breach of data security by the government:
Thieves took sensitive personal information on 26.5 million U.S. veterans, including Social Security numbers and birth dates, after a Veterans Affairs employee improperly brought the material home, the government said Monday.
The information involved mainly those veterans who served and have been discharged since 1975, said VA Secretary Jim Nicholson. Data of veterans discharged before 1975 who submitted claims to the agency may have been included.
I just blogged about the massive data security breach by the Veterans Administration, affecting 26.5 million veterans. Bob Sullivan has a terrific post comparing the government’s response to its data security breach to that of the businesses that have had such breaches in the past:
Currently, there’s a debate raging about whether the phone companies violated the law when they supplied phone call records to the NSA. Orin Kerr opines:
Just in time for Bar Exam season, I have posted my short book review of the Bar Exam: The Multistate Bar Exam as a Theory of Law, 104 Michigan L. Rev. 1403 (2006). From the abstract:
Per Paul Caron’s invitation, I’ve decided to write up a short paper based on my comments at the Harvard Bloggership Conference. It is a 5-page essay entitled A Tale of Two Bloggers: Free Speech and Privacy in the Blogosphere. It will be published as part of the symposium. From the abstract:
There are a lot of really good discussions going on in the blogosphere about law school exams recently.
Ann Althouse asks whether exams are a rewarding educational experience in and of themselves for students. Jonathan Adler offers his thoughts here. Rick Garnett chimes in at PrawfsBlawg.
In most law school courses, the grade is based on one final exam given at the end of the semester. Eugene Volokh offers a defense of this practice: