October 2010

Efforts to ramp up intellectual property enforcement in the digital marketplace are bumping up against free speech advocacy in an international treaty nearing completion and a pending Senate bill. Rights holders and many government leaders are determined to crack down on Internet piracy through stricter enforcement, but public-interest groups argue that such rules can jeopardize free speech, particularly in countries without the types of safeguard measures found in American law.

The Privacy & Security Tiger Team is currently considering policy recommendations to ensure that authentication "trust" rules are in place for information exchange between provider-entities (or organizations).

We are currently evaluating these trust rules at the organizational level, and as such, our scope here does not include authentication of individual users of electronic health record (EHR) systems. For purposes of this discussion, authentication is the verification that a provider entity (such as a hospital or physician practice) seeking access to electronic protected health information is the one claimed, and the level of assurance is the degree of confidence in the results of an authentication attempt. Comments are due by October 29, 2010 on the following questions:

• What strength of provider-entity authentication (level of assurance) might be recommended to ensure trust in health information exchange (regardless of what technology may be used to meet the strength requirement)?
• Which provider-entities can receive digital credentials, and what are the requirements to receive those credentials?
• What is the process for issuing digital credentials (e.g., certificates), including evaluating whether initial conditions are met and re-evaluation on a periodic basis?
• Who has the authority to issue digital credentials?
• Should ONC select an established technology standard for digital credentials and should EHR certification include criteria that tests capabilities to communicate using that standard for entity-level credentials?
• What type of transactions must be authenticated, and is it expected that all transactions will have a common level of assurance?

Liberal and labor-backed groups are working across the country to mobilize their base through field programs in an effort to counter the barrage of corporate-funded television attack ads.

The group America Votes is coordinating the activity of 82 groups in 10 states. More than 80 liberal organizations such as the League of Conservation Voters and Planned Parenthood Action Fund are running nearly 600 individual voter contact programs. Democratic strategists are pointing to the broad effort as a potential counterweight to the tens of millions of dollars worth of attack ads that corporations have funded against Democratic candidates through third-party groups.

Groups including the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Emily's List, Human Rights Campaign, League of Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, SEIU, and the Sierra Club are part of the effort.

The PBS ombudsman responds to the recent Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting study finding PBS news and public affairs programming lacking in diversity -- especially concerning the guests on these shows. Getler notes that while numbers are important, and a useful measure, they do not always add up to providing real diversity that is useful both to the news organization and its readers or viewers. Getler focuses first on the diversity of the shows' hosts and correspondents saying PBS "presents perhaps the most diverse public face of any major network." Getler thinks PBS can still do better on the diversity front and that everybody will be better off, especially the viewers, if this is done properly. The FAIR analysis is a good reminder and renewable challenge, especially about the need for more public interest guests.