Passing a Data Privacy Bill (NYT Letter to the Editor): Via NYT > Privacy (NYT Letter to the Editor).

To the Editor:

I know that the kind of protection you advocated in “Keeping Personal Data Private” (editorial, Nov. 25) is needed, in part because my own medical history became an open book after somebody took a laptop from the car trunk of a National Institutes of Health employee.

That was over 18 months ago, and although I was already the co-founder of the Congressional Privacy Caucus and the sponsor of a data privacy bill, it sure brought home the rising risk of exposure that everybody faces.

At the very least, federal legislation to establish national data security standards is right for the times. A bill written by Representative Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, and me is ready for a vote of the full House. Our only opponent seems to be inertia.

Joe Barton
Washington, Nov. 30, 2009

The writer is the ranking Republican member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

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