TO: ACLU Action Network FR: Bob Kearney, ACLU Field Director DT: June 18, 1999 After months of much talk and little action, Congress will soon vote on several critical privacy issues. As you will see below, we are closely monitoring developments on the protection of financial and medical records and the security of information we give to obtain a driver's license. 1. Financial Records Privacy Public outrage at the erosion of data privacy has reached new highs. Yet at this very moment, Congress is poised to miss an opportunity to improve the privacy of our financial records! On July 1st, the House of Representatives passed HR 10, a financial services bill that fails to adequately protect financial privacy. At the same time the bill removes the legal walls that currently separate banks, securities firms and insurance companies, it fails to replace those walls with privacy protections to allow people to control the flow of personal information they submit to their bank or insurance company. This bill must be reconciled with a Senate version of the legislation. Please urge your members of Congress to push for real protections before it is too late! TAKE ACTION! See the list of protections that the ACLU is recommending to Congress, and send a FREE FAX that you can personalize to your member of Congress, from our action alert at: http://www.aclu.org/action/finprivacyhr10106.html 2. Medical Privacy Also contained in HR 10 is an amendment offered by Congressman Grag Ganske (R-IA) that purports to protect medical privacy. But this provision includes a laundry list of exceptions that will leave patients with virtually no protections for their medical records. In fact, the Ganske amendment actually offers weaker protections for medical records than current law! TAKE ACTION! Join the ACLU, the American Association of Retired Persons and more than 40 physicians' and patients' groups in opposing this provision. Tell Congress to reject this last minute attempt by the insurance industry to end-run the August 1999 deadline for new privacy rules. Our action alert with talking points and a FREE FAX you can send to Congress opposing this bill are on the ACLU website at: http://www.aclu.org/action/medprivacyganske106.html 3. Drivers' Information Alarmed by recent stories of the misuse of drivers' information, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) included privacy protection language in this year's federal transportation spending legislation (S. 1143). Section 339 of the bill would return to drivers control over the personal information they disclose to get a driver's license. It would prohibit the federal government from giving highway money to states that peddle drivers' images and personal information without the consent of the driver. Law enforcement agencies would be exempt from the provision. Shelby's initiative has prompted an intense lobbying campaign by the Direct Marketing Association, which wants the language seriously weakened or removed entirely. The Shelby measure can be preserved only through an equally intense wave of public protest, raising the visibility of this issue among Senators who may soon be voting on the bill. TAKE ACTION! Our action alert and letter to congress can be found on the website at: http://www.aclu.org/action/drivers106.html --- You are currently subscribed to action as: [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] To unsubscribe, forward this message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Some email programs allow you to click on a web address and automatically go to the site. Others, like AOL, do not. If you use an email program that does not provide for clickable web addresses, copy the URL and paste it into your web browser.
