NYT OpEd: Privacy in Peril

[dw]

Editorial published February 14, 2004 in The New York Times:

In an attempt to bolster its defense of the unconstitutional Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003, the Bush administration has gone beyond its campaign to destroy women's reproductive rights and has attacked the privacy rights of all Americans.

...snip...

Unfortunately, the federal judge in New York overseeing one of the legal challenges to the new law does not grasp his duty to protect patient privacy. That judge, Richard Conway Casey of New York's Southern District, has threatened to lift his injunction blocking enforcement of the abortion ban if leading hospitals in New York City and elsewhere fail to produce files on at least several dozen women's abortions.

Underscoring the legally dubious nature of Judge Casey's threat, the hospitals in question are not themselves parties to the lawsuit. Nor, for that matter, are the women whose personal privacy Mr. Ashcroft is so determined to invade. Moreover, as Judge Kocoras aptly noted, redacting a patient's name and identification number from her file neither ends the harm to individuals of having intimate details of their medical history publicly disclosed, nor adequately protects the patients' identities.

We applaud those hospitals that are resisting Mr. Ashcroft's privacy invasion, and encourage them to stand firm until the legal proceedings run their course. Meanwhile, Americans should see Mr. Ashcroft's intimidating tactics for the dangerous threat to liberty and privacy they really are.

[Paschall]

1. Haha

Reading your subject line, I thought the problem may have been the release of Dubya's records. ;-)

[Skittles]

2. WAKE UP REPUBLICANS

it's YOUR PRIVACY TOO.