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Date Posted: 11:29:30 05/17/02 Fri
Author: James Hoyt
Author Host/IP: NoHost / 66.113.28.65
Subject: Health Privacy Bill for the Internet

info@healthprivacy.org

Senator Prevents Action on Online Privacy Bill
The New York Times
May 17, 2002

By Adam Clymer

Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/17/politics/17PRIV.html

WASHINGTON, May 16 - Senator Trent Lott, the minority leader, forced the Senate
Commerce Committee to adjourn this morning as it was on the verge of adopting an
online privacy bill.

The measure would require Internet service providers, online service providers
and commercial Web sites to get customers' permission before they could disclose
important personal information. That would include financial, medical, ethnic,
religious and political information along with Social Security data and sexual
orientation.

Mr. Lott, a Mississippi Republican, had been on the losing side of a series of
votes on amendments. The most important would have deleted the bill's provisions
allowing individuals to sue over disclosure of their personal information, and
another would have imposed the same secrecy protections on businesses that
collect their information without using the Internet.

The bill does direct the Federal Trade Commission to enact rules imposing
"similar" requirements on online and off-line data collection. But that did not
satisfy most committee Republicans.

Just before the committee was to vote to send the bill to the Senate floor, Mr.
Lott invoked a Senate rule barring committees from meeting for more than two
hours after the Senate convenes and votes. That halted action on the bill and on
several other measures, including a nomination by President Bush to lead the
Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Since all 12 committee Democrats - and 2 Republicans, Senators Conrad Burns of
Montana and Ted Stevens of Alaska - support the bill, it is likely to be voted
out at the committee's next meeting, which may happen on Friday. But Mr. Lott's
intense opposition indicates that it may be difficult for the bill even to be
debated on the Senate floor.

The committee's senior Republican, Senator John McCain of Arizona, had warned
the committee that unless the off-line-online data issue was addressed
satisfactorily and the private suits were eliminated, the bill "will have great
difficulty in receiving consideration on the floor of the Senate."

The Senate Democratic leaders have been reluctant to tie the Senate up for weeks
with any but the most essential bills. But they might force this bill to the
floor because there would be a political risk to Republicans in voting to
maintain a filibuster against it.

Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, explained the politics of the measure.

"I think this subject of privacy is a ticking time bomb, and we better pay
attention to it, because people do not want their personally identifiable
medical and financial information spread all over every place," Mr. Nelson said.
"A doctor needs to know what ails you. But those ailments, your mortgage banker
doesn't need to know that."

Senator Ernest F. Hollings, the South Carolina Democrat who is chairman of the
committee and sponsor of the bill, complained that "other than the
progressive-minded companies, Hewlett-Packard and others, still a good segment
of the industry opposes this bill."

Mr. Hollings said he found this strange because 180 American companies had
agreed to similar rules to do business in the European Union.

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Replies:

[> Re: Health Privacy Bill for the Internet -- karren, 14:48:40 05/21/02 Tue (HubX-mcr-24-95-111-59.midsouth.rr.com/24.95.111.59)

Thank you for that James and good day to U.

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