[PROVE] Some Hearing Information to Oppose SB 1237 on 5/3

[Guest guest]

(some of you will get 2 copies of this note - I am sorry - the program punted

half way through the send)

Dear PROVE TX Members,

The hearing where we can oppose Senate Bill 1237 will most likely start at 8:30

a.m. on Thursday 5/3 in the Senate Chamber in the Capitol.

Please reply to this note right away if you are planning on coming so we have

some kind of idea who we are going to be able to count on. Include your phone

numbers in case we need to reach you.

The committee clerk said the bill was indeed on the preliminary agenda, but the

official schedule of bills probably won't get released until Tuesday afternoon.

He was certain that the hearing would start at 8:30 in the morning though, so if

that information helps you as to whether or not you need to stay over from

Wednesday night, we will post local hotel information for people coming from out

of town. I will send out all the details as soon as I have them, I promise.

This committee has never heard from the families of vaccine damaged children and

have not ever had to look these children into their eyes. It is not as easy to

ignore someone's rights when they are present. Please don't hesitate to bring

your child if you think they will be okay with it.

Also, if you feel strongly about keeping your child's vaccine records private,

please set aside the time to make the calls and write the letters in our alert

and to come to Austin to oppose this bill. The alert we sent yesterday is

posted on our site at www.vaccineinfo.net for convenience.

Below, I am posting a recent commentary that was run in the New York Times that

does an excellent job on a generic gut level spelling out the difference between

opt-in and opt-out. I really believe in my heart that if we get our message

across in the hearing, the Senate will not pass the expanded registry bill

stripped of our exemption. We just need to do our job now in letting the

committee members know what medical freedom and medical privacy means to Texas

families.

Sincerely, Dawn

-----

March 12, 2001

Age of Consent

By WILLIAM SAFIRE

WASHINGTON

When you pay for your supermarket purchases with a credit card, everything you

buy is remembered by the computer, including your name. The information is then

sold by the store to marketers who want to target your tastes or to someone who

may not wish you well.

When you browse the Internet, you may think your visits to offbeat sites are

anonymous, but an army of Big Brothers is recording your every click, selling a

dossier on you to prospective employers or potentially predatory neighborhood

snoops.

When you equip your car with a snazzy navigation device, or breeze through toll

booths with an E-ZPass, you are telling buyers of " location wireless " data

exactly where you are. That data can be retrieved and used against you in

lawsuits a generation hence.

" You have zero privacy — get over it, " said McNealy, C.E.O. of Sun

Microsystems, in the modern version of Vanderbilt's " The public be

damned! " (Sun's stock plunged by two-thirds off its high; investors are trying

to get over it.)

Perhaps, on your visit to the supermarket, you picked up a package of condoms or

a pregnancy-testing kit, or in the book section, just for a joke, bought a

paperback guide to concealing assets abroad or a salacious videotape. Perhaps,

zipping though the electronic toll, you were slipping off to a ballgame on a

workday. Perhaps, in browsing the Net, you stumbled into a pedophile chat room

or some other site being monitored by the F.B.I.

In any of those instances, your privacy — a free American's right to be let

alone — has been stripped away. Some people don't mind; they like to get mail

from strangers, are unconcerned with the sale of their Social Security numbers

to potential identity thieves and profess to never have anything to hide.

But the believer in personal freedom is saying to the compilers of dossiers: ask

me first. Before following my movements and recording my habits, get my approval

— my informed, written, advance consent. I have the right to decide how much

information about me to reveal to you for your profitable use or sale. It is up

to me to decide whether to consent to trading that information of value to you

in return for whatever benefit you have to offer me.

We want a large red button next to the slot for our credit card at the checkout

counter that says " I consent. " If we choose not to push it, the store may not

sell or otherwise use the facts about our transaction.

Consumers who assert that fairly simple principle are under attack from the

information industry. Aware of rising public resentment at the explosion of

secret commercial surveillance, the merchants invading customer privacy have

come up with a public relations ruse: they call it " opt out. "

In pious press releases about their reverence for privacy, they place the burden

squarely on the customer's back. If you don't want us to sell a profile about

you, say the datamongers, it's up to you to direct us to stop. Send us an e-mail

or click over there " opting out " if you're one of those uppity types; unless you

take the initiative to warn us off, we'll just assume silence is assent.

That's a fraud and a sham. The datamongers know that most people don't know the

dangers of target marketing and won't take the trouble to protect themselves.

That's why marketers are fighting a proposed law that sellers must first get the

buyers' consent. Industry finds it harder to invade privacy for profit when it

has to persuade a consumer to voluntarily " opt in. "

Three times in the campaign, Bush expressly committed to support a new

federal law requiring " opt in " consumer consent. In the Senate Commerce

Committee, ranking Democrat Fritz Hollings has a bill doing just that.

But Chairman McCain is too preoccupied with campaign reform to focus on

protecting privacy. Worse, Senate Democrats Kerry and Bob Torricelli are

going along with the info industry's " opt out " deception.

This is not a principle to be compromised. Americans will either insist on a

libertarian Age of Consent or succumb to Big Brother's Age of Surveillance.

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/12/opinion/12SAFI.html?pagewanted=print

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Dawn

PROVE(Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education)

prove@... (email)

http://vaccineinfo.net/ (web site)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

PROVE provides information on vaccines, and immunization policies and practices

that affect the children and adults of Texas. Our mission is to prevent vaccine

injury and death and to promote and protect the right of every person to make

informed independent vaccination decisions for themselves and their family.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

This information is not to be construed as medical OR legal advice.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Subscribe to PROVE Email Updates:

Click here http://vaccineinfo.net//subscribe.htm

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Removal from PROVE Email Updates:

Click here: http://vaccineinfo.net/unsubscribe.htm

You are currently subscribed as Texas-Autism-Advocacyegroups