Formerly Medical Privacy
The HIPAA laws and those privacy informational notices then you get each time you go to the doctor were put in place to protect the privacy of your medical records. Even President Bush decided it was a good idea when he first came into office. Now his administration, through the Department of Justice seems to have rolled over for the Medical industry and taken the teeth out of the legislation by removing important criminal penalties.
A new and startling legal opinion by the Bush administration drastically cuts back the medical privacy protections of Americans. This article explains why the new opinion is bad law and bad policy.
The new opinion, accompanied by other administration actions, is turning the medical privacy law into little more than a voluntary standard. Unless the administration pulls back from its current position, it will be up to Congress to protect privacy and say that obviously criminal behavior should be punished by the criminal law.