I have spent the last 1.5 years with a small non-profit medical clinic, which has a large audience from the white house and other funding groups, implementing a large electronic medical system. All HIPAA violations are supposed to be disclosed to the feds, but because of the risk of penalty's they do all they can to hide or discredit them. Enforcement of the violations will not go into effect until mid 2011, which is why we have not seen any prosecutions so far. The entire country is required to be up to speed with HIPAA and be on electronic systems by a specific deadline, which escapes me at the moment. The feds are largely using this time as a testing and proving grounds to establish best practices because there are still so many things that have not been thought of yet, in the Healthcare Information Security industry... This will be a great industry to be involved in. Problem is right now, when you find violations and notify your boss about them, they will likely just pin it on you and fire you... ;-) HIPAA's intent is not to protect our privacy or us, but rather a government scale CYA operation... Nathan On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 3:54 PM, ChasM Marshall wrote: > Hiya, > > Lemmie talk about "HIPAA". Health Insurance Portability and > Accountability Act > Linux gurus really should be more aware of privacy ethics. > > First off: > The medical industry happens to be pretty good at self-policing. > It's not common knowledge, but prosecutions under this law are very rare. > Sadly, the whole personal privacy issue seems protected by a > toothless dragon. Legal systems that just don't work. > I can't find a single prosecution in Arizona. > > And B: > Candidates for cases do exist. > As of 2007: > http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1198749902130&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1 > "HIPAA violations are misdemeanors, and no one in Arizona has been > prosecuted under the four-year-old statute, said Sandra Raynor, a > spokeswoman > for the U.S Attorney's Office in Phoenix." > In the above case Sean Dubowik, 37, was victim of an intern's cell phone > camera. > The photo never made it to the internet, or this case would be legendary. > As it happens, this guy is owner of a strip club in the Phoenix area. > His gallbladder surgery was NOT a publicity stunt. > It pisses me off, that this gained national attention without justice. > > Privacy in Linux? What's your take? Looks to me like the law ain't any > help. > I'd bet that everyone on this PLUG list has violated privacy in some way. > Yet, I'd trust any one of 'em in a heartbeat. > It's the inexperienced that need surveillence. Or spelling lessons. > > @ Lisa: > "Trust Is A Weakness" > > (-: Chas.M. :-) > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nathan England I believe in the Constitution and the 4th Amendment. I am innocent and have nothing to hide, but NO agent of the state crosses my threshhold without a valid warrant signed by a judge and properly submitted. If we fail to exercise our rights, we lose them.