And unlike the last one, we can blame this one on the Bush administration.
Sometimes it’s the small abuses scurrying below radar that reveal how profoundly the Bush administration has changed America in the name of national security. Buried within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 is a regulation that bars most public access to birth and death certificates for 70 to 100 years. In much of the country, these records have long been invaluable tools for activists, lawyers, and reporters to uncover patterns of illness and pollution that officials miss or ignore.
In These Times has obtained a draft of the proposed regulations now causing widespread concern among state officials. It reveals plans to create a vast database of vital records to be centralized in Washington, and details measures that states must implement–and pay millions for—before next year’s scheduled implementation.
The draft lays out how some 60,000 already strapped town and county offices must keep the birth and death records under lock and key and report all document requests to Washington. Individuals who show up in person will still be able to obtain their own birth certificates, and in some cases, the birth and death records of an immediate relative; and “legitimate” research institutions may be able to access files. But reporters and activists won’t be allowed to fish through records; many family members looking for genetic clues will be out of luck; and people wanting to trace adoptions will dead-end. If you are homeless and need your own birth certificate, forget it: no address, no service.
Consider the public health implications. A few years back, a doctor in a tiny Vermont town noticed that two patients who lived on the same hill had ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Hearing rumors of more cases of the relatively rare and always fatal disease, the doctor notified the health department. Citing lack of resources, it declined to investigate. The doc then told a reporter, who searched the death certificates filed in the town office only to find that ALS had already killed five of the town’s 1,300 residents. It was statistically possible, but unlikely, that this 10-times higher-than-normal incidence was simply chance. Since no one knows what causes ALS, clusters like this one, once revealed, help epidemiologists assess risk factors, warn doctors to watch for symptoms, and alert neighbors and activists.
Activists in Colorado already know what it is like when states bar access to vital records. For years, they fought the Cotter Corporation, claiming that its uranium mining operations were killing residents and workers. Unwilling to rely on the health department, which they claimed had a “cozy” relationship with the polluters, the activists tried to access death records, only to be told that it was illegal in this closed-record state. An editorial in Colorado’s Longmont Daily Times-Call lamented, “If there’s a situation that makes the case for why death certificates should be available to the public, it is th[is] Superfund area.”
Some of state officials around the country are questioning whether the new regulations themselves illegally tread on states’ rights. But the feds have been coy. Richard McCoy, public health statistic chief in Vermont, one of the nation’s 14 open records states, says, “No state is mandated to meet the regs. However if they don’t, then residents of that state will not be able to access any federal services, including social security and passports. States have no choice.”
But while the public loses access to records, the federal government gains a gargantuan national database easily cross-referenced in the name of national security. The feds’ claim that increased security will deter identity theft and terrorism is facile. Wholesale corporate data gathering is the major nexis of identity theft. As for terrorism, all the 9/11 perpetrators had valid identification.
No more Erin Brockovich!
Via Atrios.
Posted by binky at February 21, 2006 01:38 PM | TrackBack | Posted to J. Edgar Hoover | LibertyRight here for you, Moon. I don't see how we can even debate this one without the legislation. The key to the confusion will be the distinction regarding what makes a research request legitimate, a distinction this guy could have easily remedied by including it in his article, but apparently didn't, and that kind of raises red flags right there. Why is he holding back on the details, when he's supposedly spilling the beans on the general scope? What strikes me as odd is this comment about legitimate research being allowed but not journalists or activists. What exactly is the distinction that this guy doesn't want to spell out? Does this mean people with press credentials can have access but blog journalists without those can't? Does this mean that only journalists and activists who don't want their names written down are going to be prevented from getting this information? We don't know, because this guy's being cute, despite being a reputable journalist who's motives no one should question. We should trust him without when he's not presenting us with all the facts?
Posted by: Morris at February 21, 2006 04:19 PM | PERMALINKdefense? evasion? it's all the same to you. let's just take the post's most affirmative assertions about the effect of the regs for granted for a moment, shall we, since those propositions, no matter how mitigated, are pretty scary and if this guys got any rep at all he's not just going to fabricate declarative sentences about the draft regs:
The draft lays out how some 60,000 already strapped town and county offices must keep the birth and death records under lock and key and report all document requests to Washington. Individuals who show up in person will still be able to obtain their own birth certificates, and in some cases, the birth and death records of an immediate relative; and “legitimate” research institutions may be able to access files. But reporters and activists won’t be allowed to fish through records; many family members looking for genetic clues will be out of luck; and people wanting to trace adoptions will dead-end. If you are homeless and need your own birth certificate, forget it: no address, no service.first, as an aside, another unfunded mandate from the bush admin, where fiscal responsibility means spending other people's money.
second, "report all document requests?!" first, that's expensive and cumbersome. second, for god's sake WHY? my brother just had to track down a birth certificate so he could travel to the dominican republic for a weekend on the beach. should seveneen bureaucrats get paid to look over his request to go to the beach? who's going to pay for it?
"in some instances," one might be able to get the death certificate of a relative? again, why!?
and based on the article and its context, i take it the request has to be finite and specified, so reporters can't go on the sort of fishing expeditions that have led to so much positive change over the years. birth and death records have historically been, and should be, matters of public record. absent a clear demonstration of why this should change, or should be subject to such burdens that it's tantamount to a fundamental change, there's simply no reason for this bullshit. as armand pointed out, the terrorists had legitimate ID's. this regulation wouldn't have changed that!?
oh, and from the focus on the family and anti-abortion crowd, i think it's great that they've foreclosed one avenue for adopted kids to track down their folks. brilliant.
Posted by: moon at February 21, 2006 08:29 PM | PERMALINKMoon,
You must be joking. Maybe you've heard of identity theft, that costs consumers and businesses tens of billions dollars every year. That's not even getting into the costs which could be associated with terrorist acts and criminals using these to continue to plague our society. And have you conveniently forgotten mary schneider who raised the alarm about Muslims trying to get fake IDs before 9/11. They're going to take away you're ACLU club card if you're not up on her being proof that Bush knew about 9/11. So, was she a whistleblower raising the alarm about an important issue, or was she a kook making hay about something less than nothing? Why should someone have to hide their identity when requesting a birth certificate? It would almost make me think they have something to hide. I think it's intentionally unclear speculation whether reporters will be able to go on fishing expeditions, but I'm a little confused as to how you think when it comes to the fourth ammendment people should be afforded all the privacy in the world, but as to the first ammendment, that privacy doesn't apply when it's reporters snooping around. Why don't parents who give their children for adoption have the right of privacy, if it's so important to you? And your assurance that people who have rep don't fabricate is ignorant of recent history regarding CBS and the New York Times.
i'm tired of this serial double standard, and your endless attempts to import my reasoning about apples to prove that i'm somehow hypocritical about oranges. i've never said any record that's historically been public should be made private. i've never said the federal government should force underfunded state governments to keep tabs on my. at least mccarthy paid his own tab.
Posted by: moon at February 22, 2006 09:35 AM | PERMALINKIt doesn't surprise me to hear they've tightened the restrictions to vital records access, but I doubt much has changed, in any case.
I can't speak for other states, but I was a vital statistics clerk in Texas for several years. Here's how we did it, back in the 90's:
Identifying who you were and why you wanted a vital record has always been standard practice, in Texas. The rule was, only the person represented by the document, a family member, a representative of a funeral home, a hospital or a lawyer, has rights to access. Without proper ID and written consent, no one gets access to records more recent than 75 years from the date of the record. The more tenuous the relationship was from the person of record, the more justification was necessary to get access.
In addition, "deceased" and the date of death is written on the original birth certificate, when that information is confirmed. States cross-reference with each other on vital records as much as they can, but it often took months or years for the information to get to the right place (I imagine the process has sped up considerably, now that most vital records departments have computers--back in the day we were doing it all by hand).
Not really a comment, I guess, just adding more information to the debate ;)
Posted by: stardust at February 24, 2006 10:37 PM | PERMALINKAnd thanks for the information! I've been thinking about this for awhile, because I don't know where my grandfather is buried, and I would like to do some research about when he died, and track down where heis grave is. He died when I was 2, and now, as an adult, I've moved within 100 miles of where he lived. And now I wonder, will I even be able to get access to the information?
Posted by: binky at February 24, 2006 11:50 PM | PERMALINK