Free Republic

I walked out of my Dr's office today without getting my physical. My Dr for the past 13 years closed his private office and joined the behemoth, Baptist Health System. Before my physical, I had to fill out a bunch of new forms... One of them said, "You acknowledge agreement with our Privacy Policy".. I hadn't been given the Privacy Policy... so, I asked for it. Wow. So many things in it that are awful.. for starters, they say right up front, they reserve the right to CHANGE their policy at any time, without notifying anyone, and all information they...

(Reuters) - With the White House already reeling from three major controversies, some Republican lawmakers are zeroing in on what they perceive is another possible scandal tied to President Barack Obama's landmark health reform law just as it nears implementation. On top of the troubles the administration is facing over its handling of the attack on the Benghazi mission, the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups, and the Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press phone records, Republicans hope to target Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. They are questioning her soliciting of funds on behalf of a non-profit...

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) -- It is a change that could affect all of us literally down to the core. This week the legislature will take up a plan by the governor that would require anyone arrested for a felony or convicted of a misdemeanor to give a DNA sample. "Present time anyone who is convicted of a felony is required to provide a DNA sample," said Harry Hertel. Hertel, an attorney with Hertel Law SC, sees a problem with the proposal. Mainly he says it requires good people who may have made a mistake to give up something very...

The Indiana attorney general’s office confirmed Monday it is investigating a security breach in which Social Security numbers and other personal information were posted online for roughly 44,000 low-income Americans who applied for a federal program that provides discount Internet and phone service. The program was nicknamed the “Obamaphone” during the 2012 election, though it actually started long before President Obama took office. Indiana reportedly has the highest number of applicants, roughly 17,400, who were signed up by TerraCom Inc. and the affiliated YourTel America Inc. Applicants from at least 26 states were exposed to the security breach,

The last scandal dampening rods just failed, and the reactor core at the Internal Revenue service may be about to blow. From Healthcare IT News: The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March...

FRANKLIN, Tenn. (AP) -- The Secret Service said Wednesday it is investigating the reported theft of copies of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's federal tax records during a break-in at an accounting office in Franklin. Someone claiming responsibility demanded $1 million not to make them public.

Federal authorities have opened a criminal investigation of whether Internal Revenue Service employees broke the law when they targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status — the latest setback for an agency that is the subject of withering bipartisan criticism and multiple congressional inquiries. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Tuesday that the Justice Department and the FBI began the probe after the IRS acknowledged that it selected conservative groups with the words “tea party” and “patriot” in their names for special reviews. “We are examining the facts to see if there were criminal violations,” Holder said at a news...

New documents reveal that the Department of Justice takes a similar stance to that of the IRS in claiming that they do not necessarily need warrants to spy on emails, Twitter direct messages, Facebook chats and other private communications of Americans. In the case of the IRS, the head of the agency said last month that they would abandon their policy that claimed the authority to read the emails of Americans without a warrant. However, the agency did not say that they would extend the new policy to all private electronic communications. The new documents obtained by the American Civil...

Federal education officials today told UMass Dartmouth they cannot release academic and financial records of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, according to a letter received by the Herald. "From the limited information you provided, it appears that the academic and financial records that have been requested would be protected by FERPA, and that the University may not release them without the consent of the student," wrote Dale King, director of the Family Policy Compliance Office for the U.S. Department of Education.

There are now 322 million cell phone subscribers in the U.S. and 4 billion worldwide with over 5 million cell towers and antennas scattered across the planet. 20 million Americans currently use wireless laptops, tablets, and routers, and according to the Wireless Association, that number has increased by 50% in just the last two years. Wireless devices emit radio frequency radiation (RFR) that consists of low intensity high frequency radio waves of non-ionizing radiation in the microwave range of approximately 900 MHz to 2.4 GHz. Wireless RFR now permeates most cities and rural areas and is spreading at lightning speed...

I cannot sit silently after reading “Census Calling on Kaua`i” (April 29, 2013). The article is counter to my personal experience and I feel compelled to share my experience with you. In the article the statements made by Mr. Gene Henry of the American Community Survey are counter to fact. This is not a letter representing one party or another. It is not an attempt to sway you to opt out of the American Community Survey. It is simply a recitation of fact. In 2010 my wife and I received a letter demanding that we participate in the ACS. The...

Where are today’s rebels?  Where is the counterculture? Ear-budded hipsters, with their sheep-like devotion to Apple products and the Obama administration, sit in on the April 20 “Day of Pot” in Denver, content and satisfied with their free birth control and legalized maryjane.  Meanwhile SWAT teams descend on Watertown, Massachusetts, trampling Fourth Amendment rights in search of a “person of interest”– while a Saudi National is quietly sent back to his homeland.These hipsters champion the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado while the war on Big Tobacco rages on.  Since 1997 the FDA inherited control over the $365.5 billion global...

JEFFERSON CITY — Republican state senators reacted with outrage Wednesday as federal fraud investigators testified that they had sought three times to obtain a list of Missouri's concealed gun permit holders, which the lawmakers denounced as an unjustified invasion of privacy.

AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine Gov. Paul LePage has signed into law a bill to keep confidential names and other information about gun owners who obtain concealed handgun permits. LePage, who has a concealed handgun permit, announced Friday he’d put his signature on the bill, which was approved a day earlier by lopsided votes in the Maine House and Senate.

It’ll be months before there’s a bill — or multiple bills — in the Senate, as chamber aides say the committees are still dividing up the issue by turf. And that means it could be well past the summer before the Senate convenes a floor debate on any element of cybersecurity reform, much less a conference committee that might hammer out differences over the small slice of the debate CISPA occupies. Sponsors, however, told POLITICO they had no reason to fret. “We’ll now go through the process, go to the Senate, we hope to resolve some of the remaining issues...

An attempt to ban US bosses from asking employees to hand over their Facebook login details has been blocked by Congress. A last minute alteration to the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) that would have prevented employers demanding that prospective employees disclose social media passwords as a condition of employment was voted down in the house of representatives. The proposal, put forward by Democrat Ed Perlmutter was defeated by a 224-189 majority.... Perlmutter said of his amendment before it was defeated: 'It helps the individual protect his right to privacy and it doesn't allow the employer to...

Federally licensed firearms dealers (FFLs) are required to perform criminal history background checks on prospective firearms purchasers. However, when the sale or transfer of a firearm does not involve a licensed dealer, no background check is required. This is an enormous loophole—one in which convicted felons, minors and other prohibited purchasers can readily avoid background checks and more easily acquire guns. This bill would require that a criminal history background check be performed in connection with the sale or transfer of all firearms, with a few exceptions noted below. Background checks would be performed by licensed firearms dealers, who are...

Our Internet Surveillance State I'm going to start with three data points. One: Some of the Chinese military hackers who were implicated in a broad set of attacks against the U.S. government and corporations were identified because they accessed Facebook from the same network infrastructure they used to carry out their attacks. Two: Hector Monsegur, one of the leaders of the LulzSec hacker movement, was identified and arrested last year by the FBI. Although he practiced good computer security and used an anonymous relay service to protect his identity, he slipped up. And three: Paula Broadwell, who had an affair...

We're all familiar with event data recorders -- or as they're more commonly known, "black boxes". EDRs are standard equipment on airplanes, and any time there's a mishap, news programs are full of journalists making guesses about what the recorders will reveal.If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that EDRs are coming to cars, too. In fact, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has backed legislation to make the devices mandatory on all new vehicles, beginning with the 2015 model year.What you may not know is that the new legislation would only affect around 4% of vehicles...

WASHINGTON – The Senate endorsed a little-noticed proposal Thursday that would penalize states and communities that release "private information" about gun owners, including the type of data on concealed-handgun permits that's at the center of a debate in the Maine Legislature.The 67-30 vote approving the plan to protect information about gun owners came a day after the Senate rejected a series of gun control measures sought by the White House and advocates for stronger gun laws in response to December's school shootings in Connecticut.Maine's Republican Sen. Susan Collins supported the amendment while independent Sen. Angus King opposed it.The amendment is...

“[Drones are a] game-changing technology, akin to gunpowder, the steam engine, the atomic bomb—opening up possibilities that were fiction a generation earlier but also opening up perils that were unknown a generation ago.”—Peter Singer, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution America will never be a “no drone zone.” That must be acknowledged from the outset. There is too much money to be made on drones, for one, and too many special interest groups—from the defense sector to law enforcement to the so-called “research” groups that are in it for purely “academic” reasons—who have a vested interest in ensuring that drones...

Summary: Dubbed as one of the most privacy infringing pieces of legislation ever to have hit the Capitol, what exactly is CISPA, and how does it affect you?Described as "misguided" and "fatally flawed" by the two largest U.S. privacy groups, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) threatens the online privacy of ordinary U.S. residents more so than any other bill since Congress amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008. A lot of confusion still surrounds what CISPA can do, who it affects, and what it will practically achieve. Here's what you need to know. What is CISPA?CISPA,...

Thanks to grass-roots activism, limited-government think tanks, whistle-blowing educators and bloggers, vigilant local and state legislators, and tireless parents committed to protecting their children, the truth about federalized Common Core standards is spreading.… Some stalwart conservatives inside the RNC get it. They’re bucking the mooooooderate Republican line on Common Core and have put forth a resolution being considered this afternoon at the RNC spring meeting. I heard from one of the co-sponsors of the resolution today, who believes it will pass. I’ll update with developments. Here’s the full text of the resolution, via Shane Vander Hart at Truth in American...

VILNIUS, Lithuania — As soon as Google Maps Street View was rolled out in Lithuania earlier this year, tax authorities were ready. Sitting in the comfort of their own offices, inspectors used the free Internet program for a virtual cruise around the streets of some of the Baltic country's big cities, uncovering dozens of alleged tax violations involving housing construction and property sales. They identified 100 homeowners and 30 construction companies as suspected tax dodgers thanks to Street View, finding homes where they shouldn't be and other suspicious activity, Darius Buta, spokesman for the State Tax Inspectorate, said Wednesday. ......

The ACLU has obtained internal IRS documents that say Americans enjoy "generally no privacy" in their e-mail messages, Facebook chats, and other electronic communications. The Internal Revenue Service doesn't believe it needs a search warrant to read your e-mail. Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers say that Americans enjoy "generally no privacy" in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications -- meaning that they can be perused without obtaining a search warrant signed by a judge. That places the IRS at odds with a growing sentiment among many judges and legislators who believe that Americans'...

The Internal Revenue Service doesn't believe it needs a search warrant to read your e-mail. Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers says that Americans enjoy "generally no privacy" in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications -- meaning that they can be perused without obtaining a search warrant signed by a judge. That places the IRS at odds with a growing sentiment among many judges and legislators who believe that Americans' e-mail messages should be protected from warrantless search and seizure. They say e-mail should be protected by the same Fourth Amendment privacy standards that...

Despite promises from the president and a host of other politicians who are pushing for more gun control that nobody is coming for your guns, the confiscation of guns and gun permits has apparently started in some form in New York State. One attorney representing several people who have been forced to surrender their guns spoke with TheBlaze and alerted us to some disturbing facts: Gun owners are losing their 2nd Amendment rights without due process.HIPAA Laws are likely being compromised and the 4th and 5th Amendments are being violated in some of these cases How did confiscation start happening...

Silicon Valley is fighting privacy advocates over a California bill, the first of its kind in the nation, that would require companies like Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. to disclose to users the personal data they have collected and with whom they have shared it. The industry backlash is against the "Right to Know Act," a bill introduced in February by Bonnie Lowenthal, a Democratic assemblywoman from Long Beach. It would make Internet companies, upon request, share with Californians personal information they have collected—including buying habits, physical location and sexual orientation—and what they have passed on to third parties such...

First, I will assume that everyone here knows that your smart phone has a camera, a microphone, and a GPS system built in. Software running on the phone is capable of enabling/disabling those functions, gathering data from them and transmitting the data over wifi/cell connection to whomever wrote the software. Clearly the technology is in place for a wonderfully efficient personal espionage system. Further, we live in a culture in which normally honest people commonly break the law using technology because it’s easy to do (e.g. downloading music for free, thus stealing from artists). So: 1. I wonder if the...

IRS checking out your Facebook and Twitter to help keep you honest You have less than two weeks to file your taxes and your Facebook or Twitter accounts could end up getting you in big trouble with the IRS. They're looking for tax cheaters. The IRS has been known to check car records, employment documents and other public records. Now, your social media page is on that list too. “I think that’s a little bit ridiculous,” replied one person we talked to. Some of the people we talked to were surprised. “I think it’s still an invasion of privacy,” commented...

As Senate Democrats struggle to build support for new gun control legislation, the American Civil Liberties Union now says it’s among those who have “serious concerns” about the bill. Those concerns have the capacity to prove a major setback to Sen. Harry Reid’s current gun bill, which includes language from earlier bills introduced by Sens. Chuck Schumer and Barbara Boxer. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, a top lobbyist for the ACLU announced that the group thinks Reid’s current gun bill could threaten both privacy rights and civil liberties. The inclusion of universal background checks — the poll-tested...

UPDATE (AP) — A hearing on whether a reporter should be ordered to testify about how she obtained confidential information in the Colorado theater shooting case is being continued until next week. New York-based Fox News reporter Jana Winter cited anonymous law enforcement officials in reporting that suspect James Holmes had sent a psychiatrist a notebook of drawings that foreshadowed the July 20 attack. Prosecutors and Holmes’ lawyers argued about the issue in court Monday, but the defense wants to again question a detective about whether he might have told someone else about the notebook, who may have then talked...

I am wearing a silver hoodie that stops just below the nipples. Or, if you prefer, a baggy crop-top with a hood. The piece – this is fashion, so it has to be a "piece" – is one of a kind, a prototype. It has wide square shoulders and an overzealous zip that does up right to the tip of my nose. It does not, it's fair to say, make its wearer look especially cool. But that's not really what this hoodie is about. It has been designed to hide me from the thermal imaging systems of unmanned aerial surveillance...

Over the past 18 months, a massive $100 million public-school database spearheaded by the $36.4 billion-strong Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been in the making that freely shares student information with private companies. The system has been in operation for several months and already contains millions of K-12 students’ personal identification ‒ ranging from name, address, Social Security number, attendance, test scores, homework completion, career goals, learning disabilities, and even hobbies and attitudes about school. Claiming that the national database will enhance education, the main funder of the project, the Gates Foundation, entered the joint venture with the Carnegie...

Despite Americans' concerns about the domestic use of drones, California local agencies are reportedly moving forward with an application to declare a broad swath of Southern California a “drone zone” – an area to be used to test pilotless aircraft. The purpose: government stimulus.

On Wednesday, the CIA's chief technology officer detailed the Agency's vision for collecting and analyzing all of the information people put on the Internet. The wide-ranging presentation at GigaOM's Structure:Data conference in New York City came two days after it was reported the spy agency is on the verge of signing a cloud computing contract with Amazon — worth up to $600 million over 10 years — that involves Amazon Web Services helping the CIA build a "private cloud" filled with technologies like big data.… "You're already a walking sensor platform," Hunt said, referring to all of the information captured...

Facebook no longer supports a controversial federal cybersecurity bill that would let U.S. companies share personal information with government agencies in ways currently prohibited by privacy laws. The social-networking company had previously applauded the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, which was reintroduced last month. Facebook Vice President Joel Kaplan wrote a letter (PDF) last February to Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, "to commend you on your legislation," and Rogers sent out his own press release noting Facebook's "strong support" for the bill. But then groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the...

Rage over the waste and injustice of agents sent by the federal government to bang on doors of law-abiding citizens to ask probing, creepy questions is normally something that bubbles up only every 10 years. But ever since the federal government became a cancerous leviathan, the outrage is now an annual occurrence. The first census in 1790 asked a bare minimum of questions essential for establishing congressional districts of equal populations. Despite the abhorrent practice of slavery at the time — and the counting of blacks for purposes of their fractional apportionment — the whole endeavor was aimed at fairness.

In an attempt to pursue terrorists across the globe, the Obama administration has proposed legislation that will give spy agencies access to citizens’ finances. Currently, the FBI is the only agency that has access to these databases, but the plan will give the CIA and NSA the same access. So does this proposition take the war on terror too far? Private investigator Kenneth Cummins explains the legality of the legislation.

Last week, I reported on the federal government's massive new student-tracking database, which was created as part of the nationalized Common Core standards scheme. The bad news: GOP "leadership" continues to ignore or, worse, enable this Nanny State racket (hello, Jeb Bush). The good news: An independent grassroots revolt outside the Beltway bubble is swelling. Families are taking their children's academic and privacy matters out of the snoopercrats' grip and into their own hands. You can now download a Common Core opt-out/disclosure form to submit to your school district, courtesy of the Truth In American Education group: http://truthinamericaneducation.com/uncategorized/ccss-parent-opt-out-form/ Parents caught...

The Obama administration is drawing up plans to give all U.S. spy agencies full access to a massive database that contains financial data on American citizens and others who bank in the country, according to a Treasury Department document seen by Reuters...

Senators negotiating a bill mandating background checks for all gun buyers are privately expecting the National Rifle Association not to fight the measure -- provided the legislation does not require private gun sellers to maintain records of the checks, NBC News has learned. If that requirement is met and key Republican negotiator Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma signs on, the powerful gun lobby has signaled to lawmakers that they would not actively oppose the bill -- and not count votes in favor of it as part of its highly influential NRA lawmaker ratings -- according to Senate aides familiar with...

Cyber-attacks and cyber-espionage pose a greater potential danger to U.S. national security than Al Qaeda and other militants that have dominated America's global focus since Sept. 11, 2001, the nation's top intelligence officials said Tuesday. For the first time, the growing risk of computer-launched foreign assaults on U.S. infrastructure, including the power grid, transportation hubs and financial networks, was ranked higher in the U.S. intelligence community's annual review of worldwide threats than worries about terrorism, transnational organized crime and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Owner says "it's because it's kind of a private place that people go." Will other businesses follow?Google Glass won't be available to consumers for months, but there's at least one Seattle bar where the eyewear will not be welcome. The 5 Point, a self-described dive bar in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, posted a notice to its Facebook page this week telling Glass Explorers looking to grab a pint that they will need to remove their $1,500 spectacles. The story was noted today on GeekWire. "For the record, The 5 Point is the first Seattle business to ban in advance Google Glasses,"...

An education technology conference this week in Austin, Texas, will clang with bells and whistles as startups eagerly show off their latest wares. But the most influential new product may be the least flashy: a $100 million database built to chart the academic paths of public school students from kindergarten through high school. In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school - even...

Imagine that a police officer, after taking it upon himself to search someone's car, is asked to explain why he thought he would find contraband there. "A little birdie told me," he replies. Most judges would react with appropriate skepticism to such a claim. But substitute "a big dog" for "a little birdie," and you've got probable cause. Or so says the U.S. Supreme Court, which last week unanimously ruled that "a court can presume" a search is valid if police say it was based on an alert by a dog trained to detect drugs. The court thereby encouraged judges...

MN Legislative Update on Obamacare Exchange & privacy-gutting bills Please begin now contacting your legislators about the Obamacare Exchange bills which are likely to be voted on March 4 in the House and March 7 in the Senate. They want the final bill to Gov. Dayton on March 22.

The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal report that President Obama and at least 8 Senators are now calling for a National ID Card, with a computer chip and other biometric features...

TOWSON, Md. (WJZ) — A local doctor took his own life while facing allegations he took pictures and videotaped his patients without their knowledge. Police searching his home say they found an extraordinary amount of evidence. Meghan McCorkell spoke with a patient who’s worried she’s a victim, too. Baltimore City police say they’ve contacted some of the victims but say the numbers coming forward could be huge. Police say Dr. Nikita Levy–a former OB/GYN at Johns Hopkins–took his own life inside his Towson home. It’s the same house where Baltimore City police served a search warrant. Inside they say they found...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — In a major step toward opening U.S. skies to thousands of unmanned drones, federal officials Thursday solicited proposals to create six drone test sites around the country.</p> <p>The Federal Aviation Administration also posted online a draft plan for protecting people's privacy from the eyes in the sky. The plan would require each test site to follow federal and state laws and make a privacy policy publicly available.</p>