Charleston Area Bloggers Coffee Fest

The first semi-official coffee fest of the Charleston Area Bloggers ("CAB") is on at 8 am on January 4 at Taylor Books. I'm looking forward to meeting the faces/voices behind some of the local blogs that I follow.

If you are a local blogger or interested in learning more about blogs you are welcomed to attend.

For more on the event check out Rick Lee's post here.

The Future of Privacy: 1971 View of Privacy by Supreme Court nominee Alito

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito participated in an extensive review of the future of privacy in the United States. It was 1971 and he was a college student at Princeton University. The report outlined four key areas of inquiry: Federal Government Surveillance, State & Local Gathering Data-Gathering Activities, Private Data-Gathering Activities, and the Regulation of Stored Data.



According to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), "As conference chair, Samuel Alito was responsible for the development of the project, the research, and the remarkable summary that accompanies the final report."



EPIC obtained a complete copy of the conference report from the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton University and has made it available online at the EPIC Web site. We thank the staff of the Mudd Library for their cooperation in this project.



I'm glad my college manuscripts are not under such scrutiny.



Thanks to beSpecific for this tip.

Googling Health Care, Google Medicine: What does the future hold?

Googling your health care. What does the future hold? An interesting editorial to read on the eve of the new year from the British Medical Journal.

Wikipedia and the Law

Wikipedia, the open source encyclopedia, has received significant press lately over its reliability. Of interest to lawyers is this post over at InternetCases.com discussing the use of Wikipedia over the last year by several courts from around the country.

I have started to use Wikipedia more and more over the last year. For example, check out its entry for "common law" and the column to the right on all the common law topics. It reads like my old law school outlines.

I use it for research at work, looking up current events and just for fun at home with the kids. It works great for my wife and I when we get those tough questions from our 5 year old -- from how things work to the whys of the world. It is a tremendous resource for information on any topic. Like any resource I think you need to be cautious when using it -- but it sure beats thumbing through my old Britannica or Comptons.

When describing it to people I call it a living and breathing encyclopedia and dictionary created and edited by the masses. I believe that even Dr. Johnson would be proud of Wikipedia.

What's Wikipedia? Check out its own definition of itself.

Thanks to Ernie the Attorney over at Between Lawyers whose initial post prompted me to post.

Senator Rockefeller and the NSA: Law, Politics, Privacy and Technology

For an interesting view on law, politics, privacy and technology read West Virginia Senator Rockefeller's letter involving the recent NSA domestic spy program.

The comments in the following post suggest that the capability of the NSA extend to the ability to perform a prospective or retrospective look at everyone's email messages (and I mean everyone) and filtering the information using key word searches. If a message hits with certain key words there would be the ability to dig deeper into that sender and receivers emails or implement longer term monitoring.

I am not at all surprised that the NSA is capable of such detailed and thorough searches of electronic communications, especially when comparing this to the capabilities of Google Earth (download this for your kids -- it provides hours of fun). If Google Earth provides every citizen this much detail of the NSA (type in National Security Agency into Google Earth) -- just think what the NSA is capable of seeing.

The NSA and USA PATRIOT Act a fascinating look at the legal and technology issues that collide when looking at today's wiretap issues involving email, instant messaging, electronic communication, etc. As a lawyer concerned with privacy issues I jump back and forth between support for and against the use of technology to protect citizens of the United States. I often echo the quote by Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, "You already have zero privacy -- get over it." It sure gives new meaning to search,seizure and plain view.

I also find it fascinating that Senator Rockefeller chose to use a "handwritten letter" to convey his concerns.

To read more indepth analysis of the complex legal issues involved check out this post and the followup comments by The Volokh Conspiracy.

Thanks to Marty Schwimmer at Between Lawyers for the link on this information.

Grand Rounds: Medpundit

Medpundit is this weeks host of Grand Rounds 2.13, the best of the medical blogoshpere. Check it out. Don't miss submitting your best medical blog post of 2005 to Matthew Holt at The Health Care Blog who will be doing a "best of 2005" theme next week.

A Doctor's Perspective: Medical Malpractice Trial

Kevin, M.D. pointed me to an insider's look at how doctors view medical malpractice trials which appeared in the The Olympian online. This is a must read for all medical malpractice lawyers and health care providers. I hear similar trial stories from the litigators in our firm's professional liability practice group.

Also the article points out a point that I often make -- that is -- the impact of "going through a trial" has on a doctor -- regardless of the merits of the case. The article also highlights the issue so often wrapped up in many medical malpractice cases: bad outcome vs. medical negligence.

West Virginia eHealth Initiative: White Paper on EHRs

The West Virginia eHealth Iniative recently released a resource white paper called, "So You've Decided to Buy an EHR . . . a West Virginia eHealth Initiative White Paper on Electronic Health Record System Acquisition. "

The purpose of the white paper was to is better equip providers with additional unbiased information about EHR purchases and to provide focused practical recommendations for adoption of technology based electronic health record systems.

I recently became a member of the West Virginia eHealth Initiative Steering Committee which is involved in the OHCHIT grant to develop prototypes for a national health information system.

If you have any comments on the white paper -- please let me know and I will pass them along to the subcommittee involved in the development of the white paper.

House Approves $111.7M for ONCHIT

Government Health IT and iHealthBeat Daily News are reporting that last week the House approved $111.7M to support programs backed by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONCHIT).

The articles, report that the $111.7M funding is less than the $125M requested by President Bush but $16M more than the Senate version of the bill. The article by Government Health IT states, "This increase of the original Senate mark for ONCHIT also validates the possibility that HHS could award additional National Health Information Network (NHIN) contracts."

In November, ONCHIT awarded four contracts to develop national health information network prototypes worth a total of $18.6 million, including one contract involving West Virginia's eHealth Initiative. Originally ONCHIT had planned to awared six contracts.