Logic Bomb writes "The San Francisco Chronicle says the Bush administration wants to loosen privacy rules for medical records in a variety of ways. It's the sort of arrangement where insurance companies are drooling but everyone else, from doctors to Democrats, is screaming bloody murder." Not really a surprise, given the current administration. The rules proposed during the Clinton administration would have substantially protected the privacy of medical records - keeping your HMO, insurer and pharmacy from selling information about your health without your permission. Doesn't look like they're going to go into effect, though.

corbettw writes "Fox News is running an article that slams Sen. Fritz Hollings ("The Senator from Disney") and the Democrats (with the notable exception of Rick Boucher) as having betrayed their principles. More importantly, the article explains why the SSSCA is so bad, in language any American can understand. It's nice to see someone in the mainstream media taking this beast on before it becomes law."

Maybe it's time to think about becoming an expatriate. Those who still harbor illusions about the accuracy of what pols and the popular media tell us about "geeks," gaming and cyber-culture ought to read one of the most interesting series of studies yet on computer games and the young, published this weekend in the Times of London. The government-funded study by the British Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), finds that computer games are giving a "young Britons a level of co-ordination and powers of concentration equivalent to those observed in top-level athletes." Beyond that, gamers are smarter, more likely to go to college, have more friends, read more, and get better-paying jobs than non-gamers.

David Carver writes: "I heard about this on a local news station this morning: The Financial Modernization Act, passed in 1999, allows financial institutions to share your personal financial information to other institutions without your explicit permission. They have been required by law to inform you of your rights by July 1st. The good news is that you can choose to opt out of this, but you must notify, in writing, any bank, credit card company, etc. with which you have an account. A sample opt-out letter, courtesy of Ralph Nader, is available at privacyrightsnow.com."

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), while joining Rep. Gephardt (D-MO) in a discussion of how Democrats are the "guardians of the New Economy," noted that opt-out is better, because it gives companies their first ammendment right to contact you. I agree, companies do have a right to contact me. But they should be required to pay "postage" for that right. I think spammers should pay a penny per k to both me and my ISP. A 5k spam would cost a dime. Still less then a stamp, but it'd make me a few hundred bucks a month for my time, bandwidth, and hardware costs. Spammers take away my property and happiness. Isn't that a right too? And opt-out is a joke. I've opted out of countless things, but I still get a hundred+ spams a day. Thank god for mail filters.

Like the late Romans, says author Margaret Wertheim, our civics are no longer sustained by a firm belief in our society; we are no longer sure of its purpose. This is clear enough from the presidential campaign to date. Cyberspace, she writes, will fill the void. The Net, she says, is the New Jerusalem, our new common and profoundly spiritual space. (First of two parts.)

Attack Pirate writes: "The Washington Post is reporting that Republicans in the Senate are pushing major expansion of guest worker programmer bill. The Democrats are trying to 'poison pill' the bill by giving limited rights to Hispanics who have been in the country for decades. It says Clinton might veto the bill, but he said that in 1998 but let it pass just before a fundraising trip to Silicon Valley."

(Note: First in a series.)Maybe those manifesto-spouting Wired gurus were right after all. The modern political campaign as an entity is increasingly surreal and remote, especially from the perspective of this corner of the world, where nobody seems to be paying any attention and virtual reality is taking on a whole new meaning. Are these the last days of politics? I think so, and I'll be posting (with permission) your e-mail and threads responses and thoughts in subsequent columns.

declan writes: "The Clinton administration is siding with the entertainment industry to shut down Napster. It just filed a 37-page amicus brief (WP file) in the court case, saying Napster can't use the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 as a legal shield. The brief says 'the activities of Napster's users do not even arguably come within the terms of the statute' and the district court's ruling should be upheld. The Justice Department, the Patent and Trademark Office, and the Copyright Office signed the brief. By way of possible explanation, a colleague has compiled this handy list of entertainment industry contributions to Democrats. :)" While that's a clever jab, it hardly seems fair to lay the blame at the political party involved here. Seems more like a question of Establishmentarianism -- politicians in office like to remain there, and know about both corporate bread-buttering and the importance of appearing reassuringly normal.

Salsaman writes " 2600 has just posted this article about how one of their staff members (ShapeShifter) has been arrested in Philadelphia during the Republican convention. According to 2600 he was 'arrested while walking down a street talking on a phone.'" There's a ton of information there on the protests and folks being arrested and mistreated. Of course there were extremists who deserved it, but a lot of folks were protesting peacefully. (This has no relevance, but I'm abusing Slashdot to say that I think Bush is a rotten candidate, and while I don't like Gore, I would vote for a inanimate carbon rod for president before I would vote for GWB).

Unlike any previous information conduits, Open Media are conceived, developed and dominated by the young, especially college kids with access to high-speed bandwidth and teenagers with lots of time and expertise. Change or die time. Third in a series.

tgw writes, "According to the stats page of Election.com, 35,765 people cast votes remotely in what the Arizona Democrats believe to be the first legally binding public election in the world conducted via the Internet. This number is almost triple the 12,800 people which voted in Arizona's 1996 Democratic Primary. For those unable to view the stats page a screenshot of it is available here. 'Remote Voting' in the Arizona Democratic Primary was allowed via any Internet-connected computer from Tuesday (3/7) through midnight on Friday (3/10). The election concludes on Saturday (3/11) when people can cast votes only from the 124 designated polling places - using either a computer or paper ballot to cast their vote."

The mandatory library filtering ballot in Holland, Mich., home of the Slashdot Geek Compound, has been defeated. With heavy voter turnout of 41% (compared to 12% in 1996), the proposal was rejected by a pretty wide margin: 55% to 45%. The Holland library will remain unfiltered - or, more accurately, will now have the right to make up its own mind about whether blocking software is appropriate. See the local press coverage (or national or international), or read on for more.

You think your community is conservative? Holland, Michigan, home of the Slashdot Geek Compound, is a conservative community. "Y2K," according to yard signs on my way to last night's library meeting, stands for "Yes 2 King Jesus." Supposedly the city has gone to every Republican presidential candidate but one (Abraham Lincoln). Now the American Family Association has brought mandatory library censorware to a vote on Feb.22, and the measure's opponents have a tough six weeks ahead of them. This is the first time the battle over library filters has come near my community, and my first close look at the grass roots of a First Amendment struggle. Click for more.

Rev Simon Rumble writes "The Australian Parliament has passed a law to allow the domestic spy agency ASIO 'to enter and modify computers remotely.' The spokesperson for slightly the left-of-centre political party The Democrats claims the 2000 Olympics are being used as an excuse to give more power to the spooks." You might think this is bizarre, but we're talking about the Australian government, so: business as usual.

Kelly Eberhard writes "It is apparent to me that either politicians are very new and the internet game or that they really are a slimy as the sterotype portrays them. This isn't just limited to the Democrats in California (as described in another line of discussion on slashdot). The Republican primary race in Nebraska has a candidate B. Kruiper who is listing his competitors names on major search services and linking them to his own web site. The candidate, Brad Kuiper, whose policies I question is the pages he has registered on the internet are for Lee Terry , Pat Jones , and Steve Kupka Now I do beleive that it isn't illegal to register web pages that you make on the web, I do believe this may fall under spam violation as it forces users to download information that they weren't seeking and they have to pay for online time while the page downloads." Fraudulent Search Engine Entries aren't new, but it sure is annoying.

Galen Hancock writes "Now Califonia Democrats are sending out UBE in an effort to get votes. It's a classic case of spam: "targeting", opt-out, and even a rationale: It's political, not commercial. Wonder how many people from out of state will be told who to vote for the California Assembly?" They claim that this isn't spam because they aren't selling anything. I beg to differ. If I get unsolicited email from any candidate, I will refuse to vote for them.

Nickolaus Benjamin writes "A dozen key House Democrats asked Clinton to abandon U.S. export limits on encryption link Also, the Economic Strategy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, issued a report here estimating losses to the U.S. economy due to the encryption export restrictions at roughly $37 billion over the next five years. "