Georgetown University Hospital suspended a trial program with an electronic prescription-writing firm last week after a computer consultant stumbled upon an online cache of data belonging to thousands of patients, Wired News has learned. The leaked information included patients' names, a ddresses, Social Security numbers and dates of birth, but not medical data or the drugs the patients were prescribed, says Marianne Worley, a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based hospital known for providing emergency care to the nation's most powerful political figures.
The Homeland Security Department selected one of its lawyers, Hugo Teufel III, as its new chief privacy officer. Teufel, who worked as a lawyer at the Interior Department, has been associate general counsel at the DHS. Privacy advocates expressed concerns about what they described as Teufel's apparent lack of experience.
Legal experts squared off before Congress on Wednesday about the National Security Agency�s domestic surveillance program, offering radically different views on whether changes in the law are needed to allow eavesdropping on terror suspects without violating Americans� privacy.
Private colleges fired a rather noisy shot across the bow of an education proposal aimed at keeping closer tabs on institutions of higher learning through a new national database of student records. The controversial concept of a national student �unit� tracking system has been floating around for about two years. It was given a boost last month when Education Secretary Margaret Spellings� Commission on the Future of Higher Education released a draft report endorsing such a plan.
The White House has conditionally agreed to a court review of its controversial eavesdropping program, Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter said Thursday. Specter said President Bush has agreed to sign legislation that would authorize the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's most high-profile monitoring operations.
The number of schools testing students for drug use is rising as legal barriers to testing have fallen, funding for it has jumped and schools have begun to expand the categories of students who can be screened. Since the Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that random testing of student athletes and others in competitive extracurricular activities did not violate the students' privacy rights, the Bush administration has made testing middle- and high-school students a priority.
The Massachusetts public safety commissioner yesterday suspended 20 state building and engineering inspectors for refusing to accept cellphones equipped with global positioning systems. The inspectors are responsible for overseeing construction, as well as the maintenance of boilers, air tanks, and amusement rides. They were suspended without pay for two days and were warned that if they do not take the phones when they return to work tomorrow, they will face further disciplinary action.
A government consultant, using computer programs easily found on the Internet, managed to crack the FBI's classified computer system and gain the passwords of 38,000 employees, including that of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. The break-ins, which occurred four times in 2004, gave the consultant access to records in the Witness Protection Program and details on counterespionage activity, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.
