Hooray For The Flag… Boo For The Flag Protection Amendment!

The recent defeat of the Flag Protection Amendment by the narrowest possible margin is a God-send for all Americans. While we should be proud of our Flag as a symbol of our nation, history and the principles of freedom, liberty and justice, we cannot allow our pride to interfere with the very principles for which the Flag stands.

One of the most cherished and necessary principles of our nation is the freedom to express our disgust, distrust, anger and political outrage to our politicians, leaders and fellow citizens. While most of us would choose not to disgrace our flag as a means of expressing such things, we must allow such expression as a matter of constitutional principle and basic freedom… no matter how despicable and disgusting such a protest might seem to us. The principle of allowing such a display goes back to our own history.

During the pre-Revolutionary stages of our nation, many times symbols of the British regime, British forces and British monarch were burned or defaced in effigy as a means of demonstrating the anger and outrage at the oppression and intolerable acts against colonists. Indeed, these very symbols were used as means to enforce the will of a British monarch, British Parliament and British governance upon our forefathers. The Boston Tea Party was an effective protest because each crate of tea tossed into Boston Harbor bore the royal crest and tax seal of King George III. Tossing these crates into the sea was by its very nature a defacing of the royal symbol and the seal of the British nation. The offense that the Boston patriots committed was two-fold: first, destroying goods belonging to the British government without paying the assessed tax, and second, destroying the symbol of the British Empire. The sedition that the Tea Party represented was not an outrageous economic or realistic political blow to the British government or its officers. Indeed, the blow that occurred was symbolic in nature.

So, too, was the symbol of the Liberty Tree a seditious act according to the British powers. The patriots of the day would remove all of the leaves and minor branches of a large tree, leaving only a bare shell of a tree for public display. The British authorities were offended because the creation of a Liberty Tree was a symbolic display that was used to rally and motivate citizens to see the political realities and hardships that the British regime was placing upon colonists. Those that dared to create such a public display, as well as those that dares to deface the royal crest, royal seal, tax stamps or other representations of the British regime, Parliament or the monarch were deemed seditious, morally bankrupt and a danger to the state. The penalty for anyone caught doing any of these acts was death.

Even during our Revolutionary War, symbols were used to convey political messages and express political ideas. Flags of all types and banners of all makes were used as rallying cries and motivational symbols of our fight for justice, liberty, freedom and reasoned courses of action.

As a veteran of two branches of the US military, I take great pride in our nation and the flag that represents it. I have distributed educational materials on how to treat our flag with the respect that it is due in the normal course of events. I have stood proudly at attention, saluting the flag while in uniform, in attendance at various events and during political actions. But our flag is not only a symbol of inspiration and pride in our nation, but it is a symbol and representation of our principles of justice, liberty and proper governance. In times of trouble we are taught to “desecrate” our flag by displaying it upside down to call the attention of our fellow citizens to the distress that we might find ourselves experiencing. While we may find desecration of the Flag a disgusting manner in which to express political views, we must allow such exceptions to occur unchecked as a matter of principle… principle that the very symbol represents. If we must allow members of the KKK to walk down the streets of Skokie in offense to all the Jews, Holocaust survivors and reasonable citizens (c.a. 1980s), we must also allow the desecration of our sacred symbol(s) to maintain our liberty.

Being an American is not easy. We must stand by and allow those that would express outrageous and offensive ideas to do so in order to preserve our principles set forth by our framers in the Constitution. We must allow even the most fringe elements of our society to express their ideas—no matter how unreasoned, offensive or unsound—so that our reasoned majority can openly reject these ideas. Not doing so creates a greater spectacle, a greater scandal and undermines everything we stand for in the process. Passing a flag protection amendment to our Constitution would be inherently repugnant not only to the First Amendment and the principles laid out in that part of our greatest governmental document, but also the principles delineated in the Preamble and throughout the Constitution. We, as Americans and patriots, must allow all forms of protest, representation of views and let the reasoned minds of American citizens reject notions and actions that are unreasonable, inherently offensive and/or asinine.

The fire that burns in our heart as Americans is not diminished by the desecration of our Flag. Indeed, I would argue that such a display only hardens the heart of true patriots and reinforces the values and principles that we have chosen to put forth in what George Washington called “The Great Experiment.” We will do more toward garnishing respectful treatment of our Flag by living up to the values, principles and ideals represented in that banner than by trying to protect it from desecration. We need to reinstate flag etiquette into our school curriculum as part of our Civics, Government and History courses. We need to demonstrate our reverence for our flag by educating folks as to how the Flag should be handled and displayed. We need to be bold in our expression of disgust for those that mistreat, deface or desecrate the Flag, but we cannot allow a constitutional amendment to be the means by which we change outrageous and unacceptable behaviors. It has not proven an effective tool for doing so in the past, and will not be effective as we move along in history.

VACATION IS COMING!

My wife's annual family reunion is coming up soon. As a result of circumstances that just fell into place this year, we will be taking 10 days of vacation--together--for the first time since we got married. In preparation for this, as well as due to job hunting and political activity, I am busier that a cat in a dog fight. So, my blogging activities have been lacking, and will be so for the next three weeks or so. My apologies to those that have made reading my posts a regular activity, but blogging must take a secondary role... unless there is someone out there that is willing to pay me a decent salary to blog without conditions as to content or opinion.

One of my colleagues recently asked me if I made any money blogging. I replied that there are people making money via their blogs, but that doing so can tend to obligate the blogger to keep to some limits on what can be said or done. Since I am an active member of the ACLU, a critic of local, state and federal government, and a strict constitutionalist, I tend to get into conflicts with those that want to control what I write... which is why I don't have a job writing a column for a paper... I cannot fathom having to curtail my views in favor of the whims of advertisers and sales people.

I will be on vacation from Friday, June 16, until Tuesday, June 26. I will try to find time to read my e-mail and contribute to the blog a few times during that period, but mostly I will be hob-nobbing among in-laws and soaking in a pool, weather permitting. Hopefully, I will manage to capture a decent teaching job while I am in the region I will be visiting...

The Failure Of The Conservative Economic View

A CONSERVATIVE FAILURE: Disaster Response

The conservative view of the world in the United States argues that a totally free economy will empower participants in that system to create jobs, wealth and success. The argument contends that the wealthiest citizens of such a society will use their money and resources to build industry and create innovations in technology that will give rise to wealth for workers and their families. In theory, the idea sounds like it has some merit. But in practice, the wealthiest of citizens are greedy bastards that manipulate the system so that they can create more wealth and horde it unto their own.

Let us examine this contrary view from the perspective of the US Constitution. The Preamble sets forth some basic goals and objectives for our government:

1. Government will be for the people and by the people. Since the idea of democracy is based on the idea of the "majority rule," it makes sense that the government will be the most responsive to that majority. In the case of the United States, that should be the so-called "middle class," or those making between $40,000 to $200,000 gross household income. Since our framers knew that the majority could be a hard task master and a tyrant in its own right, they built in some restrictions in the structure of government and the protections of rights.

2. Government has the goals of striving for excellence, justice, peace, safety, liberty and a generally prosperous populous. We are not supposed to settle for second best, almost right and or unjust actions. The playing field is supposed to be balanced by the structure of government and the protections of the Bill of Rights so that neither the government nor the majority can impose its tyranny. There are two dynamic functions of the society that is supposed to act in a way to assure these principles are the focus of government and the social forces in our society: politics and economics. Our politics are supposed to be balanced out, creating a level playing field, by the idea of one person-one vote. Our economy is supposed to be balanced out by the regulation of commerce by the government--under the principles of excellence, justice and liberty--for the benefit of all our people.

It is interesting to note that the only place business is given any real attention in the US Constitution is in the "commerce clause," which authorizes the government, under the powers delineated to congress, to regulate interstate business. Since all of our business today is essentially interstate in some manner, it is the federal law that provides the most control over commerce. However, where the federal government lacks jurisdiction, most states have adopted a similar set of regulations to the Uniform Code of Commerce, and other laws, that fill the gaps.

This is where my view gets a little interesting. Our framers made it clear in the Constitution that the rights of the people were paramount. Individuals have the rights. The authority of the government is derived from the consent of the people. Business--all business--does not have any rights unto itself. The rights of a business--whether a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation--is a product of the people conducting the business. But we have turned this idea topsy-turvy and now have a situation where businesses have more rights than the average citizen.

Businesses have the right to monitor employee behaviors outside of the workplace, according to the case law that has been developed under the conservative-stacked bench. An employee does not have rights in the workplace unless he/she has the money to take a business through a long, arduous and costly process. In most states, the employers have the advantage of an "at-will" employment statute, which is reinforced with a punitive approach to unemployment insurance. If a worker exercises the right to terminate employment due to perceived imblances and unfair treatment in the workplace, the availability of unemployment insurance is limited, if not completely restricted. But if an employer decides to terminate the employment relationship--for what is often arbitrary and capricious reasoning--there are no protections for the worker absent of a strong union or bargaining unit where the contractual obligations are clear and present.

There are no obligations to provide benefits for workers in our society. Despite the authority given to the government to regulate business so that business is a source of productivity, growth and prosperity for all (as outlined in the Preamble), the United States is one of the few industrialized and propserous nations where health care is not a required benefit for workers. The argument coming from business is that providing health care insurance is so costly that doing so is prohibitive and restrictive on business. However, when we see senior executives and board members walking away from their jobs with millions in "golden parachute" deals, and posting record profits without passing dividends on to stockholders (very few companies are posting dividends these day, preferring to leave stockholders to the whims and fluctuations of trading stock), it si difficult to take these arguments seriously.

The access that big business has in congress, the executive branch and our courts puts a stranglehold on our government that squeezes out the average citizen. While big business is hiring lobbyists to represent their interests in congress, and these lobbyists are welcomes into congressional offices and the White House with open arms, most of our letters and petitions to congress, the president and the courts are cast aside, ignored or dismissed. For instance, most of my letters to Senator Richard Lugar and Senator Evan Bayh are responded to with a curt, dismissive form letter or e-mail. Even my letters to Represenative Peter Visclosky, a man I helped to put into office by volunteering to work for his first campaign, are essentially ignored. When I lived in Massachusetts, my birthplace, access to Senators Kennedy and Kerry was limited to those with power, money or influence... and the rest of us got shat upon. But, having worked for a corporation with some clout in the past, I witnessed a situation where the COO and CEO were in a management meeting where an issue of policy and regulation came up, and they dialed "Ted" via a speed dial phone call and were pushed through to Senator Kennedy without delay. The call went through a priority line.

As we have seen lately, big business gets priority treatment even in terms of national security. Big business, even those not having an American base, can buy our ports, highways, tollways, railroads, telecom rights of way, broadcast airwaves, etc., without any real input from the people. Numerous court cases have sided with the arguments of big business, even to the detriment of our environment, our rights as workers, and the rights of people living near businesses that are abusive and/or neglectful. Even the right of business to use the government to steal private property for commercial development has been upheld by the SCOTUS panel of idiots. The rights of the individual are trampled upon by the manner in which this conservative view of the economy is played out at the highest levels of government.

Now, I am not arguing for communism. If anything, history has proven that system doesn't work. In fact, I am a staunch believer in the basic tenets of Adam Smith's economics. But, contrary to the view and approach adopted by the conservatives, I argue that such economics that give rise to priority treatment and access for business over private citizens, is repugnant to the purposes and principles laid out in the Preamble and supported by the entirety of the US COnstitution. Adam Smith's economics are based upon a level playing field where any individual can use the system to strive, struggle and bring forth success without undue barriers and unfair competition.

We must remind ourselves of the purposes, goals, objectives and principles of our government and society by reading the Preamble often and making sure that the constitutional principles are adhered to in spirit, process and by the letter.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Jonathan Chait has written about how this conservative economic view has failed. He references William Niskanen of the CATO Institute as his primary source of bona fides for his observations and arguments. I would recommend reading Niskanen's works at the CATO web site for some real insight into the argument. But some of Chait's observations are fodder for progressives to argue for the government to increase the access for the average citizen, and for using our tax dollars for progressive balancing out of social conditions instead of corporate welfare, regime building, nation building and conducting NSA spying.

Read on McDuff...

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about a paper that decimated the conservative worldview. The study, by William Niskanen of the Cato Institute, found that the conservative "starve the beast" strategy does not work. Indeed, since 1981, he found that tax cuts tend to produce more spending, while tax hikes produce less.

The conservative mantra of cutting taxes has been a paradox of failure. The more taxes are cut, the less prosperous most of us have become. The taxes being cut remain taxes that have been placed on the wealthiest of our society (i.e. the estate tax) in an effort to level the playing field. While I am against the taxation of inheritances for most transfers of family wealth, I cannot see the argument for not taxing estate transfers of multimillionaires. These millions were developed on the backs of workers, through the use (dare I say misuse) of governmental processes, and with priorities, influences and privileges not given to ordinary people. These resources should be tapped to finance the continuation of services provided by our government and as a means of balancing the books. It is also THE decent thing to do.

I wrote that it would be interesting to see how conservatives reacted to having the factual basis for their entire domestic strategy exposed as a fraud. And it is interesting because "starve the beast" is so central to the GOP approach to governing and because the reaction is a case study in how the conservative movement reacts when its views are disproved.

The challenge has been put forth. From Reagan's "tickle-down" economics to George H.W. Bush's "thousand points of light," the economics of the Republican right have proven false. The cost of government has increased exponentially under the reign of the conservatives. Under the so-called "liberal" reigns, our economy has boomed and our standard of living increased dramatically. Under the reign of the conservatives, more millionaires have been created than ever before, but also more poverty-stricken citizens have been produced as well. In comparison, the percentage of millionaires has remained fairly constant under both forms of leadership, but the percentage of poverty-stricken citizens has increased under each conservative period of leadership.

Under liberal leadership, public health approaches improved the overall health of our nation. Access to healthcare resources improved. Disease prevention is a priority and intervention in social problems experience greater success. Access to higher education and resources for elementary and secondary education are enhanced. While liberal leadership has lead to problems of graft and corruption, none have reached the level of scandal that have occured under the leadership of conservatives, including the Savings and Loan Scandal, Enron, Tyco, Adelphia, WorldCom, Abramoff, etc.

Well, the right has had sufficient time to formulate its response. The results aren't very impressive.

Out of the reams of conservative commentary published over the last month, I have found exactly two items reacting to Niskanen's research. Given his paper's devastating implications, the response is quantitatively--and qualitatively--pathetic.

Interestingly, Niskanen's arguments are from a moderate perspective of economics, incorporating the principles of the Constituion and Adam Smith's free economics. The lack of response to this research and Niskanen's statements is striking.

The first is an op-ed column by Nick Schulz in National Review Online. Schulz found Niskanen's finding a big puzzle. "Why would tax cuts prompt more spending?" he asks. "The only explanation so far comes from Niskanen himself," who hypothesizes that tax cuts make government cheaper, so voters want more of it.

But what we want is cheaper government that produces excellence, justice, liberty and productivty. As we can see by examining the current state of affairs with ultraconservative leadership in all three branches of government, government is currently more expensive, productivity is down because jobs and industry are being farmed out to other nations (c.f. Lou Dobbs), justice is scarce and our liberty is being assailed by our own leadership.

I urge you to read CATO Institute's work, especially Niskanen's economic liberty papers, as well as the rest of Chait's article.

Outsourcing The CEO? An Idea For The Times

The Corner Office in Bangalore

The issue of CEO compensation and golden parachutes raises an ethical question. More and more it is raising legal questions from the SEC, stockholders and the DOJ. It also raises questions regarding price gouging and unfair trade practices when the CEO of Exxon-Mobil retires with over 400 million dollars in compesation. The question of outsourcing, downsizing and relocating operations in order to keep CEO compensation as high as it is, even if the executive leads a company into bankruptcy, seems to be on the lips of everyone concerned with trade, business, retirement and making ends meet. So when I read this one, I stood up and cheered.

COSTS are rising everywhere for American corporations, from energy to employee health insurance premiums. Yet in their drive to cut expenses, most notably by moving factories and call centers to other countries, they are overlooking the escalating cost of the executive suite. It's time to apply market logic to this disturbing trend and begin outsourcing chief executives. This measure would unlock tremendous value for shareholders.

So far, outsourcing manufacturing and services has led to higher chief executive compensation, at the expense of shareholder profit. For example, I.B.M.'s chief executive, Samuel J. Palmisano, who has been moving jobs to India, last year saw his total compensation rise 19 percent to $18.9 million — even as the total return for his company's stock fell 16 percent.

That's proof that globalization hasn't gone far enough. China, India and other emerging markets offer shareholders a virtually unlimited talent pool from which to draw chief executives. With an increased supply of candidates, a truly independent corporate compensation committee would be easily able to hire superior leaders at salaries and benefits that are a small fraction of what their American counterparts in those fancy corner offices demand.

Several orders of magnitude separate the compensation of American and overseas chief executives; the Federal Reserve notes that while a typical American chief executive in 2004 got a compensation package 170 times greater than that of the average American workers, in Britain it was 22 times and in Japan 11.

But there are several benefits beyond the immediate savings. Major American corporations have been shifting their factories and labor force to China and India for some time now. It would make sense for the chief executive of an American corporation to come from, and be based in, those areas of the world where the potential for market growth is the greatest. It would be reassuring to have a chief executive who understood the local business practices, the country's cultural underpinnings and the language.

Also, given the importance placed on performing well in science and math in countries like China and India, it would be more likely that an offshored chief executive would have had a rigorous technical education instead of degrees in the "softer" management disciplines that are common at American business schools. Critics may question whether it is wise for an American company to have its chief executive in Bangalore or Beijing. But this is the thinking of a bygone era. More and more corporate chiefs say that they do not want their companies to be seen as American anymore. Cisco's chief executive, John Chambers, has declared, "What we're trying to do is outline an entire strategy of becoming a Chinese company."

Indeed, considering how the United States is perceived by the world these days, this is just smart marketing. And installing a foreigner from a developing country as chief executive would be a savvy move.

Other critics might point out that while a chief executive's compensation package may be eye-popping to the average person, in terms of his company's total market capitalization, it is really quite modest. This is an excuse, not a justification.

Current chief executive compensation creates what economists term a perverse incentive. An American chief executive, who is paid an average of $11.3 million annually, gets rewarded enough in one year to exceed the lifetime standard of living of 99.99 percent of the world's population. Even if he's booted from his job because of poor performance, he's set for life.

It is far better for shareholders to have chief executives whose compensation packages are based on the long-term performance of the company. Or in plain language, it is better to have a "hungry" executive instead of one who stays fat and happy even when the corporate ship capsizes into the troubled waters of bankruptcy.

In addition to perverse incentives, the current level of chief executive compensation creates opportunity costs. The money saved by hiring a cheaper executive can be invested in even more offshoring initiatives. A virtuous circle of shareholder profitability can be established.

Moreover, this would be a boon for management consultancies that can help companies scour the world for chief executives. McKinsey and Booz Allen, take note, and take outsourcing to its logical conclusion.

Lawrence Orlowski is an equity analyst. Florian Lengyel is the assistant director of research computing at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

A Damn Shame That This Is A True Statement

What Passes For Good News

Oh that it were not so, but the truth is that no good news is coming out of congress, the White House, SCOTUS or practically any federal building these days. Does that mean our lives really suck or that our leaders really suck? I'll leave the answer to the question up to you.

But this NY Times editorial hammers the nail pretty well.

Any day in which the House or Senate refrains from doing something destructive is about as good as it gets in Washington lately. Yesterday, the Senate cleared that low bar when it rejected efforts to repeal the estate tax.

The nation is at war and the budget is so wildly out of balance that the government cannot pay its bills without borrowing money from foreign investors. The idea that this is a good moment to repeal a tax on people who inherit multimillion-dollar estates is mind-boggling. But Congress, pushed by the lobbying efforts of a handful of super-rich families, was on the brink of doing just that. The country was saved from that fate when the Senate fell three votes short of the 60 needed to prevent a filibuster by Democrats who were rightly horrified by the whole idea.

The senators who deserve the most credit for saving the day, however, were George Voinovich of Ohio and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Republicans who broke with their party to help block consideration of the repeal. Mr. Voinovich said, rightly, that the idea of eliminating the tax under current conditions was "incredibly irresponsible and intellectually dishonest."

Majority Leader Bill Frist, on the other hand, was the chief culprit. Mr. Frist appears convinced that the best way he can demonstrate his potential as a presidential candidate is to march the chamber through votes on all the most divisive and useless legislation moldering on the agenda — banning gay marriages, writing a prohibition of the nonexistent flag-burning problem into the Constitution, and eliminating a tax that applies only to the richest 1 percent of the population.

The estate tax certainly needs work. It currently exempts the first $4 million of a married couple's estate — or $2 million for an individual — and taxes anything beyond that at 46 percent. The exemptions go up to $3.5 million and $7 million by 2009, and the rate drops to 45 percent. Then in 2010, the tax is repealed entirely. In 2011 it reverts to 55 percent of everything over $1 million.

Congress could easily have rationalized the tax structure, while protecting small businesses and family farms. But that would have forced everyone to admit that there's nothing wrong with asking people to pay a tax when they inherit enormous fortunes. For this Senate, the bar doesn't go nearly that high.

Bravo! Learning Should Always Be Valued

82-Year-Old Gets Harvard Degree

One has to admire anyone that takes learning seriously all throughout life. I wish all of my students were as driven and enthusiastic about learning like this woman.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- An 82-year-old woman graduated from Harvard University on Thursday. Betty McNeil made many pledges in her life. One was to her family -- that she would get her college degree before her grandchildren. On Thursday, she fulfilled that promise.

McNeil not only received a bachelor's in liberal arts from the Harvard Extension School, but she won an award recognizing academic achievement and character.

The United States Is For Sale... One Piece At A Time

States Looking To Cash In Assets

Not only are our ports up for grabs, and our voting machines owned by a South American company, and our borders as porous as ever, but now every state in the union is trying to sell off assets that we have paid for so that they can line the coffers... In the meantime they are leasing or selling off control of our highways, airports and other infrastructure... Don't these things play a role in our national defense and security? Aren't the Interstate Highways an integral part of our ability to move troops from one place to another in case of national emergency or invasion? Shouldn't these things remain in 100% control of our governments?

As for the lottery leases, we might as well just let the mafia run their gambling schemes. The entire idea behind the lottery was that the states could manage the operations for the least cost and produce funds that went into our coffers for schools, arts, sciences and infrastructure. Somehow we have missed the point.

States and local governments across the USA are preparing to cash in valuable public assets for one-time windfalls that could reap tens of billions of dollars.
Illinois hopes to get at least $10 billion by selling its lottery and an additional $15 billion for leasing all or part of the 274-mile Illinois Tollway. Missouri plans to auction its student loan portfolio. Pennsylvania is considering leasing its highways, and Chicago is studying a plan to lease Midway Airport to private investors.

The deals would let governments collect billions of extra dollars without raising taxes but would reduce their future revenue.

Investment banker Carol Rein of UBS Securities says foreign investors like government assets in this country because similar investment opportunities in Europe and Australia have been successful. Assets such as toll roads and water systems are attractive to investors because they have little competition and generate steady revenue.

States hope to get high prices because of strong investor demand, and at the same time rid themselves of operations that private enterprise might operate better. In return, investors will manage the enterprise and pocket future revenue. The proposed deals vary widely, from outright sales to leases ranging from 25 to 99 years. Some come with restrictions, such as limits on raising tolls, that lower the price investors pay.

The rush to sell assets was sparked by one deal: Chicago received $1.8 billion — twice the next highest bid — from a Spanish-Australian investment group last year for a 99-year lease of its 4.4-mile Skyway. The deal turned what had once been a money-losing elevated highway into a windfall that was used to reduce the city's debt and create big budget reserves. In April, Indiana made a deal to get $3.8 billion in exchange for a 75-year lease of the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road.

Government watchdogs say they support many of the asset sales but worry that some states plan to use the money to start expensive programs that will need money long after the original cash is gone.

"How the money is spent is more important than what price they get," says Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a Chicago group that promotes cost-effective government. He says Illinois should use any windfall to help the state's troubled pension plans, which have a $39 billion shortfall, worst in the nation.

Instead, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich plans to use the lottery money to start universal preschool, build schools and buy an annuity that replaces lottery profits for 16 years. "The money will kick-start something that needs to happen and build a bridge to funding in the future," says Illinois budget director John Filan. The Illinois lottery made a $615 million profit last year.

Filan says a privately run lottery can compete better against casinos and Internet gambling. "Government is not very agile in competitive businesses that require huge investments in technology," he says.

Fred Giertz, a budget expert at the University of Illinois, says the wisdom of asset sales depends on a state's financial discipline. "You're spending money now that you would have gotten later," he says.

Gee, You Would Have Thought They Could Have Figured This One

When Drug Firms Pay Off Competitors

We hope that the Supreme Court agrees to take up a pivotal drug patent case brought by the Federal Trade Commission against Schering-Plough. Otherwise, the commission may find itself powerless to block one of the more underhanded tactics used by brand-name drug manufacturers to keep generic competitors off the market.

It boogles the mind that this requires SCOTUS to be involved when most of the congress critters are lawyers, with a few doctors scattered among them, should have been able to pass legislation that would have prevented such rip-offs.

The tactic is brutally simple. A company that holds a patent on a brand-name drug, often a blockbuster that rakes in huge profits, pays a generic manufacturer to delay the sale of a competing product that might grab a big slice of the business. The patent holder makes so much money by delaying competition that it can easily afford to buy off the generic company, with the result that both companies share the wealth. The only losers are the consumers who must continue to pay high drug prices.

The tactic basically screws the sick, elderly and poor. The rich and powerful do not have to worry about such tactics. But these tactics are wrong out of principle and human decency. How is it the congress thinks it important to regulate and control who we sleep with and love, but won't protect us from big corporate rip-offs?

The Schering-Plough case involved K-Dur 20, a potassium supplement used to mitigate the side effects of drugs that treat high blood pressure and congestive heart failure. The active ingredient is in common use and not patentable, but Schering holds a patent for a coating material that releases the active ingredient slowly. That patent does not expire until this year. But two generic manufacturers filed applications in 1995 to market competing drugs whose coatings, they said, would not infringe Schering's patent.

Schering disagreed, sued, and then ultimately settled the cases. It paid $60 million to one generic manufacturer in a settlement that delayed market entry until 2001 and $15 million to another generic manufacturer in a deal that delayed entry until 2004.

These generic manufacturers do not care how they make a profit. If the big pharma corproations are willing to pay big bucks to assure a delay in generic production, no big deal. It doesn't matter that someone on a small pension, social security or some other fixed income might have to choose not to buy that medication this week.

After looking at details of the deal, the F.T.C. concluded, quite reasonably, that these settlements were essentially payoffs to delay competition. The $60 million had actually been demanded by one generic company as compensation for revenues it would lose by delaying sales of its product. And at least $10 million of the other settlement would be paid only if the generic company got government approval to market a competitive product and thus posed a threat to Schering-Plough.

Funny, the FTC can see the conflict, but all they lawyers and doctors in congress could not.

Even so, a federal appeals court ruled that the payments did not violate antitrust law and that the facts did not bear out the F.T.C.'s contention that the payments were intended to delay competition.

When the courts are stacked with pro-big business and pro-government activist judges rather than judges that read and understand the Constitution (especially the Preamble), one cannot expect anything but a decision that screws the little guy... and the little guy is always those of us that pay taxes and live under the thumb of these fascists.

That was a disastrous blow to Congressional laws that seek to speed the entry of generic competitors by brushing away spurious patent infringement claims by brand-name manufacturers. Since the appeals court decision, there has been a sharp rise in the number of settlements in which brand-name companies pay off generic competitors to keep their cheaper drugs off the market.

Isn't it fascinating how corporations can scurry like rats on a sinking ship!

The F.T.C. has rightly petitioned the Supreme Court to consider the case. But it has been undercut by the Justice Department, which has urged the court to keep its hands off, arguing that the case does not provide a good vehicle for resolving the complex issues involved. Whether the court acts or not, Congress should try to find a legislative route to block unscrupulous drug companies from buying off the competition.

Gee, I feel like I just joined the thousands that were screwed by Enron.

Decency In Congress... Indecency In Public

Congress Increases Indecency Fines Tenfold

Will Rogers once said there are two things you don't want to wtch being made... sausage and laws in congress. Here we have a case where the people making the law that would increase fines for indecency in the broadcast media are more indecent than anything I have ever seen in terms of pornography, obscenity or profanity in the media.

What the hell does congress know about indecency? After all, they confirmed Clarence Thomas amd Samuel Alito as justices of SCOTUS. These folks authorized an invasion of a socereign nation that posed no threat to the United States based on lies, misrepresentation, deception and violation of the Constitution... and they did it without double checking the facts. These folks have witnessed falsification and deception involving the invasion of privacy and violation of civil rights through an indiscriminate set of spying programs, denials and misdirections from the executive branch, and violation after violation of the Constitution by the executive leadership of our nation... and still lack the integrity, fortitude and courage to call for impeachment, make back room and back door deals to avoid defending the rights of US citizens, and attempt to pass legislation that would make it illegal to offer food, water and shelter to people that might be in grave danger crossing a desert. What the hell do these folks know about decency, never mind indecency?

These folks impeached a sitting president because he lied about having a naive intern provide him oral copulation in an adulterous indiscretion that should have been left a matter between him, his wife and the intern. Instead, his integrity, the status of a woman as his wife and the reputation of a young, inexperienced woman--who made one of the stupidest blunders possible--were all ruined... But our current president has somehow coated himself with teflon so that serious violations of law, principle and morality are completely ignored.

These are the same folks that have hosted the indecent/immoral/illegal sexual, drunken and/or possibly criminal acts of John Jenrette (he and his wife had sex on the Capitol steps), Ted Kennedy (Chappaquiddick and defense of family member William Smith), Barney Frank and Garry Studds(sexual escapades with congressional page(s)), Jospeph Biden (for being on the panel that heard Anita Hill's testimony and not knowing Thomas's conduct was immoral and indecent), Joseph Lieberman (pretending to be a Democrat while acting like a ultra-conservative member of the religious right and staunch defense of Israel no matter how many people they incarcerate, torture or kill), Orrin Hatch (blaming the suicide of a teenager on the fact that he played Dungeons & Dragons rather than a severe sense of despair, disconnect and lack of family supervision), and all the lawyers in congress that have not called for impeachment because thay haven't had the decency to read the Constitution that they have taken an oath to defend, support and enforce.

What the hell does anyone in congress know about decency that would provide them with the ability to determine what is indecent?

These folks actually think a breast, penis or vagina are indecent! They think a sexual act is indecent! Thay cannot fathom that killing thousands in an injust war is indecent. They cannot fathom that ignoring genocide in Africa is indecent. They cannot perceive that not providing basic health care and public health services in a comprehensive, cohesive and affordable manner is indecent. They cannot understand that pinching families and individuals filing bankruptcy due to personal catastrophe is indecent while authorizing bailout programs for big business, flexible bankruptcy terms for large corporations and tax breaks, benefits and grants for the oil companies. These folks think that swear words over the airways are forms of indecency but screwing the public through one scandal after another is perfectly acceptable, including defending congress critters that have taken bribes and acted in ways to manipulate laws in favor of big corporations like Enron. They think they are immune from the laws they impose upon us, but that they should get paid more, be allowed to take corporate-sponsored trips, and work one-third the time that the rest of us work.

Vowing to clear the public airwaves of prurient and vulgar material, Congress has overwhelmingly approved legislation to increase by tenfold the fines that broadcasters could face for indecent programming.

President Bush welcomed passage of the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act and promised to sign it into law. "I believe that government has a responsibility to help strengthen families," he said in a statement. "This legislation will make television and radio more family friendly by allowing the FCC to impose stiffer fines on broadcasters who air obscene or indecent programming."

The bill would increase the maximum fines the Federal Communications Commission may levy for indecent content from the current $32,500 to $325,000 per incident. The legislation passed the House 379-35 on Wednesday after moving through the Senate last month on a voice vote.

Approval of the bill culminates a two-year effort to get tough on sexually explicit material and offensive language on radio and television following Janet Jackson's 2004 Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction."

The FCC recently denied a petition of reconsideration from CBS Corp.-owned stations facing $550,000 in fines over the Jackson incident, in which she briefly revealed a breast during a halftime concert.

The bill was important to conservative groups and its passage came on the same day that another conservative priority - a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage - failed in the Senate.

"The FCC will now have the authority to impose meaningful, punitive fines when the indecency law is broken," said L. Brent Bozell, president of the Parents Television Council, a group that has actively pursued cases of indecent material on the public airways. "We hope that the hefty fines will cause the multibillion-dollar broadcast networks finally to take the law seriously."

Unequal Treatment Of Equally Heinous Offenders

More Sex Offenders Tracked By Satellite

Unless we are going to track murderers, thieves, white collar criminals, burglars, defrauders, and others that commit major crimes against us in the same manner, I would think this type of tracking violates fundamental human rights and the Constitution.

It is not that I do not recognize that sexual offenses are particularly heinous, and the recividism rate for sex offenders is very high... it is that the same is true of burglars, thieves, scammers, domestic abuse perpetrators, white collar creeps, etc. Is the rip-off perpetrated by those in charge of Enron any less heinous than someone that molested a child? Is a rapist any more dangerous than a murderer? Is a sex offender not on a par with a burglar in terms of recividism? Will we be placing the same type of surveillance on drug offenders... after all the recividism and relapse rates are about the same.

We might as well lock up all of the sex offenders and throw away the key. Hell, why don't we just implement a policy that was depicted in one of the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation... the only penalty for any breach of law is death. It would make as much sense as the idea of punishing someone for the rest of their lives. We have a system of justice that is supposed to assume innocence until proven guilty, allow for redemption through "paying a debt to society," and not engaging in cruel and unusual punishment. The constant tracking of, and public humiliation, of sexual offenders is unusual because we don't do the same for offenders of other heinous crimes. Why don't we post the identity of all thieves, murderers and burglars along side of the web sites that list the sex offenders? At least we should be fair in the application of the ridiculous and asinine.

Hundreds of convicted sex offenders will have to wear a two-piece electronic tracking device for the rest of their lives under a new Wisconsin law.
Ankle bracelets and a pager-sized unit, often attached to a belt, will use Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to follow their every step. If they enter restricted areas, such as schools, officials will be alerted.

GPS programs will track 285 offenders the first year, beginning July 2007, and up to 400 by the second year, says Dan Leistikow, spokesman for Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle.

In May, Wisconsin joined a rapidly rising number of states using GPS to monitor convicted sex offenders. At least 23 states are doing so, according to a survey in February by the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole. Others have since begun or expanded GPS programs.

"In the last several months, it's been exponential growth," says Steve Chapin, president of Pro-Tech, a Florida-based firm that provides GPS services to 27 statewide agencies. He says his business has doubled in the past three months.

As of January, 13 states had laws requiring or allowing GPS tracking, says the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Aside from Wisconsin, governors in at least six states (Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Virginia, Washington and Michigan) have signed such bills this year. New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch plans to do so soon. Similar bills are pending elsewhere.

"It's the law you can't vote against," says Chapin.

Several of the laws are named after Jessica Lunsford, a 9-year-old Florida girl who was kidnapped, raped and killed in February 2005. The man charged with killing her was a convicted sex offender who hadn't reported that he lived across the street from her family. After he fled, it took almost a month to find him.

Even states without specific GPS laws, including Minnesota and Texas, are testing the technology and expanding its use.

Congress may accelerate such efforts. The House and Senate have each passed sex offender bills this year that approve funding for GPS tracking. They need to craft a final bill.

Back Room Deal Made With Telecoms Working For NSA

Senators Won't Grill Phone Companies

A last-minute deal Tuesday with Vice President Cheney averted a possible confrontation between the Senate Judiciary Committee and U.S. telephone companies about the National Security Agency's database of customer calling records.
The deal was announced by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the committee chairman, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. They said Cheney, who plays a key role supervising NSA counterterrorism efforts, promised that the Bush administration would consider legislation proposed by Specter that would place a domestic surveillance program under scrutiny of a special federal court.

In return, Specter agreed to postpone indefinitely asking executives from the nation's telecommunication companies to testify about another program in which the NSA collects records of domestic calls.

In my view, it is astonishing that anyone would take the word of Dick Cheney on anything related to the NSA. But even more astonishing is the fact that these congress critters think they have the right to skip out on the task of investigating why the NSA is operating completely in the dark, outside of the oversight of the two congressional intelligence committees, absent of warrants and/or probable cause and in a manner that co-opts private businesses into being de facto agents of the government. Even more astonishing still is the arrogance of these telecoms to cooperate with the NSA without 1) a warrant or subpeona issued by a court of competent jurisdiction; 2) alerting customers to a "privacy policy" that informs them that their information, contacts and conversations may be turned over to the NSA; and 3) following a constitutionally sound procedure. Since the government's co-opting of these telcos is essentially the same as deputizing these companies as agents of federal law enforcement or the military, someone ought to ask why warrants were not issued or why "posse comitatus" was not suspended.

The deal prompted protests from Democratic lawmakers, who said the Republican-controlled Congress had refused to challenge the administration's expansion of presidential authority. "Why don't we just recess for the rest of the year, and the vice president will just tell the nation what laws we'll have?" said Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the committee.

I am convinced that the only way to make congress work again is to oust all of the incumbents and start fresh with an all new set of congress critters. Let's take the teeth out of the bear.

Specter has challenged the administration to justify the legality of intelligence programs inside the country.

After the hearing, Specter said his hand had been forced by the telephone companies' refusal to discuss classified programs. Representatives of more than one company — which ones were not specified in the meeting — agreed to appear, Specter said, but told the panel they would not talk about classified information. Hatch said President Bush "is willing to work with us as long as it doesn't detract from the president's constitutional powers."

Specter should have referred the matter to a closed session, the senate intelligence committee, or brought the matter before SCOTUS. A private company has no inherent right to refuse to testify before congress (or its committees) except in cases where national security--and the legality of operations in this regard--have been established by way of a contract with the government... and all contracts are reviewable by congress at all times.

At least one Democrat shared Republican concerns about forcing telephone officials to discuss classified programs. "Companies that are trying to be good citizens shouldn't be held out to dry," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Feinstein is way off. Telcos that cooperate with secret operations that are inherently illegal are not being good citizens. Besides, corporations are not CITIZENS... We the PEOPLE are citizens... and the telcos are guests in our society... and congress answers to US.

We are being hornswaggled... hoodwinked... screwed... ripped-off... and buggered by our own congress.

Yet Another Reason To Be Against The Death Penalty

Witnessing Guilt, Ignoring Innocence?

There are several studies that demonstrate that eye witness accounts suck. There is so much that eye witnesses miss, and there is a psychological process of filling in the holes, that most eyewitness testimony is only reliable as a tool to point the investigation in the right direction. As far as conviction is concerned, eye witness testimony is always--or should always--be treated as suspect without overwhelming corroboration.

Further, the process of a line up, which is a critical tool in eyewitness processing, has been shown to be even more flawed. There are mistakes and deliberate attempts to manipulate the line up that create reversible error, if the lawyer involved in the defense is awake and on the ball.

THE police lineup — in which the anxious eyewitness casts an accusing gaze on a string of sullen men (or women) on the other side of one-way glass — is as much a staple of actual law enforcement as it is of "C.S.I." and "Law & Order." It is also highly flawed. Yet because of a poorly designed study of lineups in Illinois, much-needed improvements to the process may not be forthcoming.

For some time now, scientists, criminologists and defense lawyers have advocated ending the tradition of having the witness view potential suspects all at once and going instead to a sequential method, in which the witness views suspects (or photographs of them) one at a time. Better still is the "double-blind" sequential test, in which the law-enforcement official administering the lineup does not know who is the suspect and who are "fillers."

A pilot project in Minneapolis and a generation of peer-reviewed laboratory experiments have concluded that the sequential method has a smaller error rate than old-fashioned simultaneous lineups. New Jersey now uses sequential lineups, and legislatures or commissions in California, North Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin have endorsed them.

In April, however, Illinois officials released a study showing the new method was less reliable than the traditional one, based on results in three police districts. According to the study, witnesses using the sequential method picked out an innocent person — someone brought in as a filler — 9 percent of the time, compared with a 3 percent rate for simultaneous lineups (both figures are oddly below the typical error rate in such studies of 20 percent or more).

While these results have heartened police officials and prosecutors who have resisted changing to sequential tests, the study was so rife with methodological errors and biased analysis that it crossed the line between science and advocacy.

It's hard to understate the power of eyewitness testimony in criminal cases. In thousands of cases every year, testimony of a single eyewitness, uncorroborated by forensic or any other evidence, is used to sustain serious felony charges, including robbery and murder. For years, district attorneys have resisted calls to reform lineups, arguing that because double-blind sequential protocols had never been tested on "real" victims outside the laboratory, they shouldn't be adopted in the field. The Illinois project, properly conducted, would have provided an outstanding opportunity to deal with this concern.

The one thing the Illinois experiment did prove was that adoption of double-blind sequential protocols is fairly simple. It also gave more evidence that sequential lineups result in fewer overall identifications: witnesses made ID's in 53 percent of such lineups, versus 62 percent for old-fashioned simultaneous ones. Whether this is an improvement is open to debate.

But the idea that the sequential lineups were less accurate was based on a false premise: that any time the actual suspect was chosen, the result was "accurate." Doing justice in criminal cases is not a matter of identifying the suspect; it's a matter of identifying the actual perpetrator — who may or may not be the suspect. And while the police are often confident in their judgments, the constant stream of exonerations based on DNA testing and other evidence has starkly demonstrated the gulf between their confidence and scientific accuracy.

Significantly, the Illinois study had no way to control for actual guilt. Indeed, because many of the identified suspects are still wending their way through the system, scientists cannot even assess whether the criminal justice process determined that they were guilty. Nor, apparently, did the researchers have access to the case files, making it impossible for them to determine whether there was any forensic or corroborating evidence at all to support the validity of any particular identification.

Thus to assert that the instances in which the witness singled out the suspect were in fact correct identifications of a criminal is akin to the Alice in Wonderland notion of "sentence first — verdict afterwards."

Another problem with the Illinois pilot project was that it wasn't a true blind study: it allowed police officers who knew the actual suspect's identity to be in the room with the eyewitnesses in the simultaneous lineups, but not in the sequential ones.

And nobody with experience in the justice system would deny that there are plenty of ways, some subtle and some not, for an officer to telegraph to a witness which person in the lineup is the actual suspect. Consequently, comparing an unblinded simultaneous sample to a blinded sequential one is like comparing apples to dolphins.

And then there is the fact that the supposed superiority of simultaneous lineups was detectable in the study's cases in Chicago but not in the nearby Joliet police district. Could it be that big city officers were pushing witnesses toward identifications in circumstances in which their smaller-town brethren are more circumspect?

As with so many aspects of the Illinois pilot study, there is no way to know the truth. But that will not stop police officials and district attorneys from using its pseudo-scientific results as a basis on which to resist the mounting calls for change.

Prosecutors often tell us defense lawyers that they, too, want the fairest possible trials. But when it comes to identifications, it seems they want precisely what the current flawed lineups give them: suspect identifications.

David Feige, a former public defender in the Bronx, is the author of "Indefensible: One Lawyer's Journey Into the Inferno of American Justice."

Pending SCOTUS Cases For This Term

Selected Cases Awaiting Rulings

It seems that not only are the Supremes slow in granting cert, but that they are taking their sweet time hearing cases. The term is set to end soon and these cases remain on the docket. Let us hope that these cases are heard before the justices all go on vacation... especially if the stack of Republican conservatives take as much vacation as does George W.

•Hamdan v. Rumsfeld: Regarding the Bush administration's attempt to hold military trials for foreign terrorism suspects and its broader effort to keep federal judges from hearing claims from detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

•League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry: Testing the validity of a Texas congressional district map that Democrats say violates the constitutional guarantee of equality because it was drafted solely for partisan gain two years after a map based on the 2000 Census was adopted.

•Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White: Testing when an employer has wrongly retaliated against a worker because she claimed sexual harassment or other bias.

•Randall v. Sorrell: Testing a Vermont law that would limit campaign contributions from individuals to $200-$400 per election, depending on the race, and cap how much a candidate for statewide office could spend in a two-year election cycle.

•Hill v. McDonough: Testing whether a prisoner who has exhausted his appeals can use civil rights law to get a hearing on his challenge to a lethal-injection execution.

•Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. Army Corps of Engineers: Testing how broadly the Clean Water Act covers remote wetlands that eventually drain into navigable waters and when it bars developers from obtaining building permits in the those areas.

•Hudson v. Michigan: Testing whether evidence from a police search must be suppressed if officers fail to wait a reasonable amount of time after knocking and announcing at a suspect's home.

•Mohawk Industries v. Williams: Testing whether a corporation could be found liable for a racketeering “enterprise” because it used outside recruiters to get illegal-immigrant workers.

Another Episode Of Weltschmerz

Geneva References Omitted From Revised Army Interrogation Manual

In another blow to the dignity of the military, our nation and the honor of those serving (have served), the US Army is deliberately excluding references to the Geneva Conventions in its training and field manuals... especially those regarding interrogation and treatment of prisoners, detainees and enemy combatants. It seems that the Bush gang is attempting yet another end run around the Constituion, military standards, laws, principles and ideals of our great nation.

The US Defense Department has decided to omit references to common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which bans "cruel treatment and torture" and "humiliating and degrading treatment" of detainees, from the new Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation and accompanying directives, an anonymous military official told the Los Angeles Times. The decision to omit specific references to Article 3 will not be final until the Pentagon officially releases the new field manual and implementing directives, which it was scheduled to do last April. The US State Department has been adamant in its opposition to omitting Geneva Convention protections, contending that including Article 3 in the field manual and official US interrogation guidelines will make it easier to defend US policies abroad by placing the US government on a better "moral footing." Pentagon officials, however, are concerned that the inclusion of Article 3 references could allow established interrogation techniques, such as segregating detainees or questioning a male detainee's manhood, to be challenged in US courts. A senior defense official, speaking anonymously, said that the planned detainee directive is based on Article 3, but "there are certain things unlawful combatants are not entitled to."

The Pentagon has been working on a new version of the manual since the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib (and other scandals) surfaced in 2004, but has struggled to come to an agreement on revisions. Delays in its release have been attributed to attempts to legitimize different interrogation techniques and allow the army to obtain timely intelligence from prisoners, while complying with the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, a measure pushed through Congress last year by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) that explicitly prohibits any cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of persons in custody of the US government. High level military attorneys in May told Congress that some interrogation methods at Guantanamo Bay are not consistent with the field manual, calling some tactics humiliating and degrading.

We Are Losing The Moral High Ground

NY Times Editorial: Degrading America's Image

As a veteran of two branches of service that worked with all the branches in some capacity, one of the things I hold sacred is the honor of having served my country. But I remember when my country was honorable and striving for high ideals. We decried the events of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. In boot camp, regardless of the branch of service, we are taught the values of our military, with specific training on our treatment of prisoners, detainees and the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, the rules of engagement on the battlefield/at sea, and the provisions of the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) that require us to ascertain whether a situation is lawful or unlawful, whether an order is lawful or unlawful, and whether or not what we are doing is in keeping with the highest ideals of the military and the nation.

It is this sense of honor that drives most military members and veterans. But when our country throws away these time-honored traditions, ideals and laws, there is a sense of cognitive dissonance and weltschmerz that undermines our position in the world. The following NY Times editorial outlines some of that sense of dissociation with the honor of having served and the lack of honor occurring within the government.

For more than seven decades, civilized nations have adhered to minimum standards of decent behavior toward prisoners of war — agreed to in the Geneva Conventions. They were respected by 12 presidents and generations of military leaders because they reflected this nation's principles and gave Americans some protection if they were captured in wartime.

It took the Bush administration to make the world doubt Washington's fidelity to the rules. And The Los Angeles Times, reporting yesterday on a dispute over updating the Army rulebook known as the Field Manual, reminded us that there is good reason to worry.

At issue is Directive 2310 on the treatment and questioning of prisoners, an annex to the Field Manual. It has long contained a reference to Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which covers all prisoners, whether they meet the common definition of prisoners of war or are the sort of prisoners the administration classifies as "unlawful enemy combatants," like suspected members of the Taliban or Al Qaeda.

Article 3 prohibits the use of torture and other overt acts of violence. But Mr. Bush's civilian lawyers removed it from the military rulebook over the objections of diplomats and military lawyers. Mr. Bush has said he does not condone torture, but he has also said he would decide for himself when to follow the ban on torture imposed by Congress last year. Removing the Geneva Conventions from Army regulations gives the world more cause for doubt.

Article 3 also prohibits "outrages on personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment." (Remember the hooded man, the pyramids of naked prisoners?) The Pentagon says the new rules require humane treatment, but that is not much comfort, since the Bush team has shown that it does not define humane treatment the way most people do.

There are other aspects of Article 3 that this administration probably finds inconvenient, like its requirement that governments holding prisoners subject them to actual courts "affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples." The hearings at Guantánamo Bay hardly meet that description.

It defies belief that this administration is still clinging to its benighted policies on prisoners after the horrors of Abu Ghraib, the killings at American camps in Afghanistan and the world's fresh outrage over what appears to have been the massacre of Iraqi men, women and children in the village of Haditha.

Active Duty Military Records Stolen With VA Data

Records On Active-Duty Military Included In Stolen VA Data

Complete and utter incompetence is rampant at the VA... apparently it has a cousin at the DOD.

The names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of up to 50,000 active-duty military personnel were included in the data stolen from a Veterans Affairs Department employee's home last month, the department announced Saturday.

Among the 26.5 million people with records affected by the security breach were 10,000 to 20,000 National Guard and Reserve personnel on at least their second active-duty call-up. The compromised information may also include personal details on 25,000 to 30,000 active duty Navy personnel who completed their first enlistment term prior to 1991.

VA said in its statement that it learned of this "through its ongoing analysis of the data."

The department is working with the Defense Department to match the data and verify those potentially affected. Individual notification letters are being sent to those who could be affected by the stolen data, according to the statement.

Active-duty military personnel may be included in the compromised VA database because the individuals were issued notifications from the Pentagon, known as a DD-214s, or separation from active service notices, once they completed their first enlistment.

This paperwork triggers an automatic notification to VA that the individual is no longer on active duty, but in these cases the people re-enlisted. VA believes the information could still be in the agency's data files.

There is no evidence suggesting that full-time active-duty personnel from other branches of the military are affected, the department stated.

VA Secretary James Nicholson has said a data analyst in the department's Office of Policy violated agency policy by taking home a digital copy of unencrypted records containing the names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth for veterans discharged since 1975 and some of their spouses. Also at risk are veterans discharged before 1975 who filed for disability compensation.

The department has initiated the process for firing the career data analyst, who will be afforded the same rights other career federal employees receive in such situations, VA officials said. The employee has worked at the agency for more than 30 years and had been taking sensitive data home since 2003.

To assist in the department's efforts to determine what information was in the database, VA has hired data forensic experts to analyze the original data.

A House Veterans Affairs Committee official said the panel will have at least five hearings on the incident between now and July 13. A final report from the VA Inspector General is expected July 10.

Bush's Anti-Gay Marriage Campiagn "Desperation Politics"

Lou Dobbs Tonight 06-05-06

Lou Dobs is considered a conservative media figure and reporter. He is a self-described "lifelong Republican," although he is somewhat of a maverick in regard to international trade and immigration. He has a degree in Economics from Harvard and has a business/economic Republican pedigree.

An outspoken critic of the Bush administration, Dobbs has tackled the issue of Dubya's newest waste of time efort, the constitutional amendment campaign to "preserve the family" and define marriage as a consecrated social relationship between a man and a woman. Admittedly, not one Republican or ultra-conservative Christian believes that this will pass the 2/3 quorum requirement in both houses because the very concept of the amendment violates the constitutional principle of state's rights.

However, Dobbs took the issue to task for several reasons, devoting two longer segments of the show to commentary and reporting on the issue. The CNN Quick Vote Poll, which is not scientific or reliable as a predictor of overall views, but does offer some insight as to the thinking of the vastly conservative audience that watched Dobbs, reports that less than one percent of the Dobbs/CNN audience thinks the gay marriage issue is even remotely important in contrast to other issues. (See Poll Results image attached to this post.)

One viewer wrote to Dobbs, saying:

I am more worried about illegal immigration, Iraq and Katrina issues. All those issues that George Bush has failed at. If he wants to motivate his base, then he needs to lead on these issues and not play games with gay marriage. Get a grip, George.

The obvious political nature of this amendment campaign is not being overlooked even by the Republican/ultra-conservative base that Bush is attempting to motivate in preparation for the mid-term elections in November. Dana Bash, a member of the Dobbs Tonight team reported:

BASH: Proponents of a gay marriage ban say they do think they will get 52 votes this time around, a clear majority for the first time that they say will show they have momentum in the long term. But obviously there is also a short-term political goal here, and that is to try to appeal to conservative voters who are disillusioned with the job that the Republican leaders are doing here in Washington. But Democrats today accused Republicans of putting gay marriage on the agenda to try to divert attention from the issues that Americans really care about, things like Iraq and high gas prices.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BASH: Now, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, actually put this measure on the Senate calendar at the beginning of the session, the beginning of 2005. But, of course, they are not bringing it up until now, five months before the election.

Lou, that is one reason why many conservatives are frustrated with their leaders here, because they feel that they only pay attention to their issues when they are in an election year.

DOBBS: And is there some frustration among the president's base, as best we can judge, that some might say that this president, the Republican leadership in the Senate, are being somewhat cynical and insulting their intelligence by driving a wedge issue into the forefront?

BASH: Well, some conservatives say they are happy no matter when the president -- or, more specifically, the Senate brings this issue up. They say it's long overdue, that this is, for many of them, one of the reasons, just one of the reasons why they voted for Republicans in 2004. But, you're right, others -- not just on this issue, Lou.

This issue, the fact that they see deficit spending here, immigration. They are very upset with the job that leaders here in Congress are doing.

What really speaks volumes about this push for a constitutional amendment is what is being ignored, as described by Senator Harry Reid (D-NV):

Will we debate the raging war in Iraq? No. Will we address our staggering national debt? No. Will we address the seriousness of global warming? No. Will we address the aging of America? No. Will we address America's education dilemma? No. Will we address the rising crime statistics? No. Will we debate our country's trade imbalance? No. Will we debate stem cell research? No. But what we will spend most of the week on is a constitutional amendment that will fail by a large margin.

More importantly--and you have to admire a conservative that looks at factual data to help make an informed decision on a politicalized issue--the data on marriage and the decline of the family in America demonstrates that the gay marriage issue has NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on the average American family:

President Bush says gay marriage poses an imminent threat to the American traditional family. But the facts show something different. In fact, those facts show that most marriages that end in divorce in this country do so because of financial problems, not because of same-sex marriage laws.

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ask any divorce lawyer and they will say there are many reasons marriages fail. At the top of that list, financial problems and a lack of communication about those problems.

It is really important to note that issues outside of the marriage, as in anything political, is reported as the cause of divorce or family dysfunction. While alcoholism, infidelity, financial problems, substance abuse, mental illness, pornography, abuse, unemployment and communication all make the "hit list" of causes for divorce, gay marriage, immigration, abortion, and other issues championed by the Christian Right and other ultra-conservatives do not make the list. Indeed, even the ultra-conservative Bible Thumpers do not list gay marriage as an issue that undermines the family in such a way as it leads to divorce..

In the great scheme of things that go on in our world, the claim that homosexuality undermines the sanctity of the family doesn't hold up under scrutiny... despite the claims of Dobson, Falwell, Robertson, Swaggart, Hinn, Baker, Coulter, Coulson, et al.

JARED BERNSTEIN, ECONOMIC POLICY INST.: If you look at divorce rates, they are highly associated with bankruptcies, with loss of job, with some kind of negative shock to the income. So it seems to me that if we want to strengthen families, we ought to be looking at a whole set of policies that this administration has been more undermining than strengthening.

TUCKER: Millions of jobs sent by corporations to lower-cost labor markets, real wages depressed, the costs of education soaring, energy costs climbing. But neither Congress nor the administration is taking up those issues, nor the rising cost of health care insurance.

It appears that Big Business, and the workforce policies and impact that these businesses have on our families, are more important to the basic health and stability of the American family. But I have been harping that cause for the last two decades. Our large corporations--banks, agribusinesses, car makers, pharmaceutical producers, health care providers, oil companies, utility companies, etc.--have larger effects on the American family than any religious institution, social tradition, government institution or social policy. Surprise!
NANCY ZIRKIN, LEADERSHIP CONF. ON CIVIL RIGHTS: They are spending a lot of time on the House and Senate floor debating this very divisive amendment when we have 43 million uninsured Americans, and they are one serious illness away from poverty.

TUCKER: Nor is Congress looking at out-of-wedlock birth rates, where in Louisiana, New Mexico, Mississippi, Delaware, and South Carolina, the percentage of children born out of wedlock tops 42 percent. The national average is 36 percent.

Say what you want about the morality of same-sex relationships, the vast majority of them do not currently produce children that will be raised in a morally and financially bankrupt situation. The teen pregancy and unwanted pregnancy problems are of far greater importance than preventing gay marriage. But if you ask a member of the ultra-conservative Christian Right, the only answer you will get is "We need to teach abstinence." Well, folks, that, too, is an approach that ignores the very basic fact that children are already having sex and producing their own children... and the facts demonstrate that the "adstinence only" approach to sex education is a complete and utter failure... even by the measure of the ultra-conservative Christian Right programs that have been teaching the approach.

What we are really dealing with is a form of institutionalized denial of basic social problems. There are ultra-conservatives that believe that prayer and "proper" worship of God will conquer all the ills of the world. But this ignores the major tenets of Christianity... Faith and action are required to work together, and these have to be based upon love, compassion and charity.

I recently corresponded with Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun Magagzine, the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and a congregation in San Francisco. In that exchange I outlined the first principles of spirituality that are common to most major religious traditions, but are especially accented in the teachings of Christ:

1. Faith: A belief that there is a divine plan for the good.
2. Hope: an earnest belief for the best of things in the worst of circumstances.
3. Charity: giving of one's self to improve the world, the community and others.
4. Love: acceptance of the person even when the behaviors are not in keeping with one's ideals and values.
5. Forgiveness: letting go of hate, anger, frustration and resentment.
6. Redemption: making amends for past mistakes.
7. Connectivity (Fellowship): all of us need to connect to each other.
8. Inclusion: allowing all people to be a part of our society whenever safe and reasonable.

And the greatest of these is LOVE.

Only one state currently allows same-sex marriage, Massachusetts, while Vermont and Connecticut allow civil unions. Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia have no laws explicitly banning members of the same sex from marrying.

While many marriages are cerremonies performed by a religious official, that religious official must be recognized by the state, there must be a "marriage license," and there are fees to be paid to the state as part of the process. Therefore, all marriages are civil unions, regardless of where or how the ceremony is performed. Calling such relationships "civil unions" only appeases the ultra-conservative ire at the entrie concept of same-sex relationships... which only proves that this is a matter of religious preference and should be governed by the tenets of the First Amendment.

None of those states appear in the top 10 states with the highest percentage of failed marriages. They are all at the bottom of the list. Currently, 40 states have legally restricted marriage to being between a man and a woman.

Which begs the question, what does the president mean when he says an amendment to the Constitution is necessary because the states are having trouble defining marriage in a way that's acceptable to him.

DOBBS: This is a -- an unusual time in Washington, D.C. The idea that the states that are permitting gay unions or gay marriage have the lowest divorce rates, or among those with the lowest divorce rates, and those traditional states are among those with the highest, median family income declining in this country, real wages declining, finances and communication about those finances the principal reason for divorce in this country, half the people in this country, half the families with two income earners in them, those who are lucky enough to have both parents in the same household, single family, single- parent families, on the rise, and we're talking about an amendment to the Constitution to ban gay marriage.

Now there is an interesting dynamic and fact... None of these "liberal" states that are tolerant of alternative lifestyles are the leaders in the divorce game... and family stability.

So much for the claims of the ultra-conservative religious folks.

Somebody Isn't Doing The Job

I was running an errand this afternoon in preparation for my wife to return home from downtown Chicago. I ran into a cashier at a grocery store that could not solve a problem. He could not solve the math problem that was presented to him by a non-cooperative patron, nor could he solve the practical problem of making the register do what he wanted it to do. It struck me that someone had failed to do there job.

My first instinct was to blame this young person for not taking school seriously and learning the basics of math. I know that when I went to school the problem he was trying to resolve was taught to me from the first grade right up into my senior year. But then I realized something I had not considered before today... my senior year in high school was less stringent and less productive than my experience in first grade.

My second instinct was to blame the young man's parents for not making him go to school, do his homework, work harder, or get some tutoring for him during the summer. But then I recalled that my parents hadn't done that for me either. I went to school and I did my homework because that was where I saw my future... at least until I turned 18 and was able to legally sign out of school during my senior year. School had somehow lost touch with my needs as a learner. I was an eager learner and a high achiever. If I had stayed in school until graduation, I would have graduated with high marks... even though I missed a lot of school to work for my dad's construction business, worked my tail off to make it to my Judo lessons, and was busy trying to impress a few noteworthy females.

My last inkling was to blame the schools. But I have done my share of reviewing schools, and I have worked as a teacher. Most schools are doing the best they can with what they have available. But I found that I was always reaching into my own pocket to make sure I had the supplies and resources I needed to teach, make my classroom effective and grab the attention of my students. While I have run into a handful of educators that had no business being near students, the vast majority of teachers are dedicated to getting the job done, despite all the distractions, scatter-brained administration ideas, lack of consistent school discipline and budget deficits.

But after coming home I realized that we are failing as Americans. We are not building the culture that we believe we have. We are content believing that we are the greatest nation on the earth and we do not have to work at maintaining our status, our reputation, our ideals or our principles. We do not look out for each other any more. Our neighbors are strangers and they live next door. It used to be that we knew everyone on the block, knew when a family was in financial trouble, and knew who was crazy or a danger. Now we suspect everyone is either crazy or dangerous and stay behind our doors.

But we don't talk about politics any more either. We make excuses for not doing so because the topic of politics, like religion and family, always gets people riled up. But we used to have a tradition of talking politics in our bars, at the barber shop and at our dining tables. More importanly, we tend to talk about values but neglect to put them into practice. It seems like we have gotten accustomed to an easy way of doing things, which means we don't really deal with them.

I am going to make it a mission to go out and talk about politics, religion, education, ethics and other things that piss people off... and do it because it is part of the job of being an American... and a decent human being.

The Ever Expanding "War On Terror"

WHAT IS THE "WAR ON TERROR"? Term Limits

It seems that The New Republic folks have noticed that the term "war on terror" has an ever-expanding definition that seems to empower the Bush gang to take on anyone they seem to think is--and eventually deems as--the enemy. The term has become a meaningful piece of propaganda that has kept us in a state of fear and heightened concern, and willing to tolerate the war in Iraq and Afghanistan... and the war posturing elsewhere.

Sometimes a slogan or turn of phrase acquires so much political weight that it endures well after its original meaning has been exhausted. Such was the career of Republican appeals, beginning in the late 1970s, to "small government" or "limited government." And that, too, is what has happened to the phrase "war on terror" that grew out of the Bush administration's response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Ever since September 11, the administration has continued to make the "war on terror" the rhetorical centerpiece of its foreign policy. George W. Bush featured it in the 2002 and 2004 campaigns and Karl Rove has already intimated that it will play a major role in the 2006 elections. And the Democrats have followed suit by insisting they could wage this war more effectively.

My colleague Peter Beinart has made fighting the war on terror the focus of his new book, The Good Fight: Why Liberals--and Only Liberals--Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again. And in an otherwise critical review of the book, American Prospect Editor Michael Tomasky declares "sound" its premise "that fighting terrorism must occupy a central place in the liberal schema." But what, exactly, five years after Al Qaeda's last attack on American soil, does waging the war on terror mean?

If you go back to the term's origins, it clearly applied to the war in the fall of 2001 against the Taliban in Afghanistan, which was sheltering Al Qaeda. That offensive largely succeeded. The Taliban was deposed, the terrorist camps destroyed, and Al Qaeda's leadership killed, captured, or driven into hiding. No other government has stepped forward to shelter Al Qaeda; and Osama bin Laden's organization of fighters has become a loose network that can't be engaged militarily, but that is also capable of concerted political action. This network is still very dangerous. It is capable of acts of terror, or of planning them--witness the latest arrests from north of the border--but it is not a concern for war planners, but for police and intelligence activity and homeland security officials.

There have been attempts to formulate a broader definition of the war against terror, which would be directed against any group that employs terrorist tactics, including Chechnyan rebels. But in spite of urgings by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Bush administration has been unwilling to target the mere tactic of terrorism. Rhetoric aside, the administration has never been at war with a tactic, but rather with a specific group and set of groups that target Americans and American allies. And that's how it should be. Terrorism has a long and varied history--from anti-Czarist Russians to Jewish groups in the war for independence down to the Tamal Tigers and Hezbollah.

What was once the war against terror should not be ignored, but it should be redefined as a police and intelligence operation. It still demands considerable resources, and vigilance, but it can no longer be seen as central to American foreign and military policy. And its rise and fall also depend greatly on how the United States handles other conflicts, particularly those in the Middle East that appear to pit the United States against Muslims. Of these, the most important is that precipitated by the Bush administration's disastrous decision to invade and occupy Iraq. That decision has imperiled the stability of the entire oil-rich region and has provided a recruiting poster for Al Qaeda.

The United States faces a whole set of regional conflicts, none of which can simply be subsumed under the war on terror. These are outgrowths of the attempt of the great powers to divide up the world in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, which provoked revolution, secession, and partition. These include the half-century old clash between the Israelis and Palestinians, the cold war between India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, and North and South Korea, the ongoing conflict between Russia and Chechnyan and other secessionists, and even the continuing hostilities between the United States and Cuba. Most of these have global significance: They involve nuclear weapons on one or both sides. And those in the Middle East and around the Caspian Sea involve oil and pipelines.

There are also conflicts-in-waiting. Some Bush administration officials expect a contest between the United States and China over dominance of Asia and, perhaps eventually, over oil supplies from the Middle East. There are also controversies stirring between the United States and resource-rich Latin American countries and between the United States and Russia. Add to these disputes over trade and currency and over global pollution and global warming. What could conceivably be called the "war on terror" is only one among several challenges and not the, or even a, central one.

So Why Do They Give Us All Those HIPAA Flyers?

Medical Privacy Law Nets No Fines: Lax Enforcement Puts Patients' Files At Risk, Critics Say

If you go to the doctor, visit a pharmacy or are admitted to a hospital, you are required to sign a document that indicates that you have been informed about the way in which information about you and your health care will be used, protected, released, etc. Then you are handed a pamphlet, form letter, flyer or other documentation that tells you all the nitty-gritty details.

HIPAA is estimated to cost over 2 billion dollars a year in compliance and enforcement expenditures. HIPAA provides for some really stiff fines and actions for violations... So why then isn't the law being used to curb violations and fines being assessed?

We must understand that medical privacy is related to abortion, HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted disease, as well as your social security number, address, birthdate and other information that could be used to steal your identity, rob your bank accounts, ruin your credit, deny you insurance coverage and allow unauthorized investigations.

The failure to enforce the provisions of HIPAA is a failure of our government to protect our rights and further puts us at risk due to government action or inaction.

In the three years since Americans gained federal protection for their private medical information, the Bush administration has received thousands of complaints alleging violations but has not imposed a single civil fine and has prosecuted just two criminal cases.

Of the 19,420 grievances lodged so far, the most common allegations have been that personal medical details were wrongly revealed, information was poorly protected, more details were disclosed than necessary, proper authorization was not obtained or patients were frustrated getting their own records.

The government has "closed" more than 73 percent of the cases -- more than 14,000 -- either ruling that there was no violation, or allowing health plans, hospitals, doctors' offices or other entities simply to promise to fix whatever they had done wrong, escaping any penalty.

"Our first approach to dealing with any complaint is to work for voluntary compliance. So far it's worked out pretty well," said Winston Wilkinson, who heads the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Civil Rights, which is in charge of enforcing the law.

While praised by hospitals, insurance plans and doctors, the approach has drawn strong criticism from privacy advocates and some health industry analysts. They say the administration's decision not to enforce the law more aggressively has not safeguarded sensitive medical records and has made providers and insurers complacent about complying.

"The law was put in place to give people some confidence that when they talk to their doctor or file a claim with their insurance company, that information isn't going to be used against them," said Janlori Goldman, a health-care privacy expert at Columbia University. "They have done almost nothing to enforce the law or make sure people are taking it seriously. I think we're dangerously close to having a law that is essentially meaningless."

The debate has intensified amid a government push to computerize medical records to improve the efficiency and quality of health care. Privacy advocates say large, centralized electronic databases will be especially vulnerable to invasions, making it even more crucial that existing safeguards be enforced.

The highly touted Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act -- known as HIPAA -- guaranteed for the first time beginning in 2003 that medical information be protected by a uniform national standard instead of a hodgepodge of state laws.

The law gave the job of enforcement to HHS, including the authority to impose fines of $100 for each civil violation, up to a maximum of $25,000. HHS can also refer possible criminal violations to the Justice Department, which could seek penalties of up to $250,000 in fines and 10 years in jail.

Wilkinson would not discuss any specific complaints but said his office has "been able to work out the problems . . . by going in and doing technical assistance and education to resolve the situation. We try to exhaust that before making a finding of a technical violation and moving to the enforcement stage. We've been able to do that."

About 5,000 cases remain open, and some could result in fines, Wilkinson said. "There might be a need to use a penalty. We don't know that at this stage."

His office has referred at least 309 possible criminal violations to the Justice Department. Officials there would not comment on the status of those cases other than to say they would have been sent to offices of U.S. attorneys or the FBI for investigation. Two cases have resulted in criminal charges: A Seattle man was sentenced to 16 months in prison in 2004 for stealing credit card information from a cancer patient, and a Texas woman was convicted in March of selling an FBI agent's medical records.

Representatives of hospitals, insurance companies, health plans and doctors praised the administration's emphasis on voluntary compliance, saying it is the right tack, especially because the rules are complicated and relatively new.

"It has been an opportunity for hospitals to understand better what their requirements are and what they need to do to come into compliance," said Lawrence Hughes of the American Hospital Association.

"We're more used to the government coming down with a heavy hand where it's unnecessary," said Larry S. Fields, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. "I applaud HHS for taking this route."

But privacy advocates say the lack of civil fines has sent a clear message that health organizations have little to fear if they violate HIPAA.

"It's not being enforced very vigorously," said William R. Braithwaite of the eHealth Initiative and Foundation, an independent, nonprofit research and advocacy organization based in Washington. "No one is afraid of being fined or getting bad publicity. . . . As long as they respond, they essentially get amnesty."

The approach has made health-care organizations complacent about protecting records, several health-care consultants said. A recent survey by the American Health Information Management Association found that hospitals and other providers are still not fully complying, and that the level of compliance is falling.

"They are saying, 'HHS really isn't doing anything, so why should I worry?' " said Chris Apgar of Apgar & Associates in Portland, Ore., a health-care industry consultant.

Goldman and others also questioned why the government is not conducting more independent audits of compliance in addition to investigating complaints.

"It's like when you're driving a car," said consultant Gary Christoph of Teradata Government Systems of Dayton, Ohio. "If you are speeding down the highway and no one is watching, you're much more likely to speed. The problem with voluntary compliance is, it doesn't seem to be motivating people to comply."

Wilkinson's office has conducted just a "handful" of compliance reviews, an HHS spokesman said, and completed one -- a case involving a radiology center that was dumping old files of patients into an unsecured trash bin. The center agreed to hire a company to dispose of records and no fine was levied, the spokesman said.

Wilkinson said the size of his staff limits its ability to do much more than respond to complaints.

"We've had challenges with our resources investigating complaints," he acknowledged, saying they are complaint-driven. Wilkinson added, "We've been successful with voluntary compliance, so there has not been a need to go out and look."

But other government regulators take a different approach, privacy advocates say.

"The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission -- they find significant and high-profile cases and send a message to industry about what is permitted and what isn't," said Peter Swire, an Ohio State University law professor who helped write the HIPAA regulations during the Clinton administration.

Goldman and other privacy advocates point to numerous reports of health information being made public without patients' consent -- the recent theft of millions of veterans' records that included some medical information, a California health plan that left personal information about patients posted on a public Web site for years, and a Florida hospice that sold software containing personal patient information to other hospices.

In the meantime, Goldman said, surveys continue to show that for fear that their medical information will be used against them, people avoid seeking treatment when they are sick, pay for care out of pocket, or withhold important details about their health from their doctors.

"The law came about because there was a real problem with people having their privacy violated -- they lost jobs, they were embarrassed, they were stigmatized. People are afraid. The law was put in place so people wouldn't have to choose between their privacy and getting a job or going to the doctor," said Goldman, who also heads the Health Privacy Project, a Washington-based advocacy group. "That's still a huge problem."