Connecticut AG Opens New Era in HIPAA Enforcement with Health Net Suit: Via Security, Privacy and The Law Published by Foley Hoag LLP.

In the first instance of a state attorney general exercising the new powers granted by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act ("HITECH Act"), Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (and recently announced candidate for the U.S. Senate) filed suit today against Health Net of Connecticut, Inc. for failing to secure private patient medical records and financial information involving 446,000 enrollees in Connecticut and for failing to promptly notify consumers of the security breach. [ Read more ... ]

Health Insurer Loses 1.5 Million Patient Records: Via Threat Level.

A health insurer lost 1.5 million patient records last May but waited six months to disclose the incident.

The data, which was stored on a portable disk drive that disappeared from the insurer’s office, was unencrypted and included patient Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and health data, according to the Hartford Courant. The disk also contained personal information on at least 5,000 physicians.

Health Net discovered the loss in May but never informed patients, law enforcement or government entities, despite data breach laws in some states that require data spillers to notify victims and state officials when residents are affected by a breach. The insurer finally sent a letter to Connecticut’s attorney general and the state’s Department of Insurance this week. [ Read more ... ]

Librarians Describe Life Under An FBI Gag Order : "Life in an FBI muzzle is no fun. Two Connecticut librarians on Sunday described what it was like to be slapped with an FBI national security letter and accompanying gag order. It sounded like a spy movie or, gulp, something that happens under a repressive foreign government. Peter Chase and Barbara Bailey, librarians in Plainville, Connecticut, received an NSL to turn over computer records in their library on July 13, 2005. Unlike a suspected thousands of other people around the country, Chase, Bailey and two of their colleagues stood up to the Man and refused to comply, convinced that the feds had no right to intrude on anyone's privacy without a court order (NSLs don't require a judge's approval). That's when things turned ugly.

The four librarians under the gag order weren't allowed to talk to each other by phone. So they e-mailed. Later, they weren't allowed to e-mail.

After the ACLU took on the case and it went to court in Bridgeport, the librarians were not allowed to attend their own hearing. Instead, they had to watch it on closed circuit TV from a locked courtroom in Hartford, 60 miles away. 'Our presence in the courtroom was declared a threat to national security,' Chase said. [ Read more ... ]

Conn. regulators to continue phone record probe - Connecticut News from The Hartford Courant : courant.com: "

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. -- State regulators concluded Wednesday that their agency has the jurisdiction to investigate whether two telephone companies turned over customer records to federal authorities.

Commissioners of the state Department of Public Utility Control voted unanimously to approve a draft decision that claims authority to investigate the possible release of the records by Verizon and AT&T.

Attorneys for the companies had urged the agency to drop the investigation, which has the support of the American Civil Liberties Union and Connecticut's state Office of Consumer Counsel and attorney general. [ Read more ... ]