Goodness gracious. No wonder we have such a hard time getting information from the government. Not only do government officials not know the law, apparently neither do some of my colleagues.

Take an article in Friday's Standard-Examiner about the Davis County Library Board clarifying its privacy policies on lending. The first sentence reads:

Library reading and information records are as private as medical records.

Uh, no. There is no federal regulation of public library records. In Utah, library records can be classified as private and in some circumstances the release of private information can be considered a misdemeanor offense. I have not seen such a prosecution in my three-plus years reporting on Utah crime.

Medical records are safeguarded by state and federal law. Any health provider who violates the rules face the real possibility of fines from the federal government. Plus the provider is vulnerable to lawsuits from the victim. On the whole, there are a lot more teeth in protections for medical records.

So the deputy county attorney who gave the briefing was wrong when he said:

...the law is no different than the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPPA.

No G-Man will knock on your door if you tell people I once checked out a Danielle Steel novel, guys.

Here's one that really blew me away and I wish the reporter had challenged. The deputy county attorney said the move to keep private the library records are "important because it protects a person's First Amendment rights...."

What? I make my living off the First Amendment and I have never heard it applied to secretly checking out Kama Sutra from the library. Some courts have cited the First Amendment to prevent banning books from libraries, but if you want a constitutional right to check out in privacy, I suggest looking farther down the Bill of Rights.

-- nc

Labels: GRAMA, secrecy