Yesterday’s Reformer had a piece by GMD reader (and sometimes poster) Paul Heinz that echoed some of our own concerns about Freyne’s piece:

If you believe everything you read, you might think the 2008 gubernatorial race is shaping up to be a two-man contest between Republican Gov. Jim Douglas and the Progressive Party’s Anthony Pollina.

That is, if you read this week’s Seven Days.

One page of the weekly Burlington paper features an ad with a Pollina campaign logo asking interested “volunteers, donors & campaign staff” to sign up for the campaign.

And on another page, columnist and long-time political observer Peter Freyne writes that Pollina is “the man who looks to have the best shot against Jim Douglas next November” and that another top contender, State Sen. and former Lt. Gov. Douglas Racine, D-Chittenden — isn’t very serious about the prospect.

“The recent floating of former Democratic Lt. Gov. Doug Racine’s name was less than a genuine trial balloon,” Freyne wrote. “Doug is not interested. Trust me.”

But according to Racine himself, that’s just not the case.

“Unlike journalists, I guess (Freyne) doesn’t have to call somebody to find out what they’re doing. He never talked to me about it,” Racine said Wednesday. “I am considering it.”

So here’s my question, and I say this once again noting that I like Peter and I like Seven Days.  But on Peter’s own blog, he makes a plug for a Progressive Party ad sponsored by  his own paper.

So… I guess I need to know what Peter’s intent is here: is it to report on Vermont politics or to influence them?  It sure comes across as though either he or Seven Days (or both) is attempting to influence the race and get the Democrats out.  They have every right to do so, but I’d like to see them say so up front if that’s their goal.

In the meantime, we have a direct contradiction here: the Reformer is reporting that Doug said Peter never talked to him about it.  

Freyne, on the other hand is saying that they did  talk.  Freyne, however, does not indicate when they talked or whether or not it was about the Gov. race.  

Peter?  What did you talk about and when?

Well, that’s an interesting question.

I posted about this in June, and this morning I decided to do some follow-up, so I posted a thread over at Daily Kos:

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There was an article in the Rutland (Vermont) Herald last June which was probably ignored by everyone but me.  In Vt. probes sale of broadcast spectrum, the Herald notes that the Vermont State Colleges did a no-bid deal with Utopian Wireless Corporation which the state is questioning, as it appears that the licenses are worth a lot more than Utopian paid for them:

“We estimate the value of these EBS license to be in excess of $500,000,” Smith wrote. “Vermont is home to numerous wireless broadband companies that are working hard to meet our rural broadband goals. Many of these companies are desperately seeking out licensed spectrum that will ensure their company’s future. It appears that Utopian’s mission is purely speculative in nature, with hopes of selling those assets to a larger national provider. It is unlikely that a national provider would have Vermont as a priority for building a wireless broadband network.”

After the fold, I’ll continue my Kos dairy plus add some comments about what I’ve found out since posting it.

There are some obvious questions here about the propriety of the no-bid contract and the financial issues, and that’s was the focus of the Herald article.  However, I’m much more interested in another aspect of the story.  Who is “Utopian Wireless” and what are they after?

I tried finding out about Utopian Wireless and came up blank, except for one interesting fact: they appear all over the country in meeting minutes from local school boards which are discussing similar deals: buying wireless networks from local school districts.  Web searches for Utopian yield nothing in the way about the corporation, who’s in it, no way of verifying whether any of the officials involved in these transactions have any connection to the company, etc.

Here are some examples:

Pangburn School Board:

NEW BUSINESS:  Mr. Wood informed the board that Utopian Wireless Corporation, a Delaware corporation (“Utopian”), would like to enter into an ESB lease agreement with Pangburn School District for the B channel group in Searcy, Arkansas, call sign WND586.  This matter will be tabled at this time.

Jasper  (IL) (link to pdf file):

Motion by Wes Pitcher, second by Gordon Millsap to approve the Education Broadband Service Lease Agreement with Utopian Wireless corporation as recommended. Ayes: Richards, Millsap, Pitcher, Huddlestun, Barthelme, Allison, Weber. Nays: None. Motion carried.

Also, the FCC has a daily release of transfers.  One from September 17, 2007 shows several transfers of leases involving Utopian Wireless that suggest a transfer from a Denver school as well as a couple other entities.

So while I don’t know who they are, I do know they’re not local to Vermont (they appear to be from Delaware), and I think that there’s real question as to whether or not a state entity should be making choice deals with out-of-state businesses without even giving local companies a chance to bid on the deal.  It could end up happening that Utopian just turns around and sells the networks to someone else for a profit, a profit that could have stayed in Vermont’s hands.  I’ve tried my best at sleuthing this out in Vermont and came up with nothing.  

There is a website — http://utopianwireless.com — that may or may not be connected with this company.  It’s a stub of a site without any real content and no contact information, a bookmarked “coming soon” site from Network Solutions, which tells us nothing.

Here’s why I’m interested: I don’t know who these people are but I know they’re doing deals by approaching local school systems, many of whom are strapped for cash.  I don’t know if they’re making good deals or bad deals, but I know they’re making deals and expect some profit off of those deals and I want to know what their intent is: to do some good for schools while making a profit?  To make a profit at the expense of schools?  I just don’t know and I’m having real trouble finding out anything.

So I’m hoping maybe some other Kossacks have a clue about this.  I know this is a long shot, and for all I know, this diary will die within minutes after it’s posted, but I figure it’s worth a shot– anyone have a clue as to who this company is and what they’re all about?  

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Okay, so here is what I learned since posting that:

1. WHOIS info suggests that Utopian Wireless is owned by RJGLaw LLC, a law firm which works with telecomm companies;
2. SEC info suggests that this company is connected with Clearwire, a company which is summarized by this comment from Jessical on Kos: “They basically go in, blanket an area with marginal routers, and then hard sell “instant connect, wireless broadband internet”.  On Capitol Hill in Seattle, they actually come up and attempt to get signups on the street;”


3. Clearwire is, apparently, connected with Craig McGraw, a guy who hosts great big pro-Bush events in Colorado every couple of years;

So this is what it looks like: VSC turned over their lease to an out of state company for lot less money than that lease was worth, so that that company could try to make a profit selling sub-standard service to Vermonters.  

Great.  Just… great.

I’m very curious to see how this plays out, but in the meantime, keep the name “Clearwire” in your minds.  If you see it pop up in your area, let me know.  

Crossposted to Daily Kos

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Imagine that you are shown a card with a line on it, and given three options, and are asked “which line best matches the one on the card?”

You’d choose “C,” right?

Now imagine that you are the last in a line of people answering this question out loud, and every other person in the room has chosen “B.”  

What do you do?  The answer, once again, sounds easy: “I’d still choose ‘C.'”  Except that for a lot of people, that’s not the answer. About one out of three respondents consistently went with the majority and nearly three quarters conformed with the group at least once.  Some did this because they questioned their own answers.  Some did this because they didn’t want to diverge from the group.  Others did this because they didn’t want to “sound stupid.”  

Today we’ll be exploring Solomon Asch’s work on conformity and what it teaches us about the power of conformity.

Previously, I’ve written about diffusion of responsibility and the use of language to subvert morality.  There are ties into that work here, but first I want to give some background:

So really, this is an incredibly simple experiment: get a group of people into a room and tell them you’ll be giving them some questions to answer.  Put them around a table, like shown on the right.

Then give them questions like the one above, or (my personal favorite):

      2

   + 2

  ——

     ?

What you do not tell them is that everyone at that table but the little red dot at the end is a confederate.  I.e., they’re part of the experimenter’s team and they have been instructed to give the wrong answer and give the wrong answer consistently.

Here’s what Asch learned:

• conformity occurred across gender and class lines;


• even people who did not conform showed serious discomfort when giving the correct answer;


• having a single confederate dissent from the group greatly decreased conformity;


• those who conformed often found excuses for doing so: said they didn’t understand the question or had poor eyesight.  Few blamed conformity or other group members for their conformity;

Let’s take a few of these in turn:

1. even people who did not conform showed serious discomfort:

   it’s amazing how much of our social interactions influence our attitudes and perceptions of who we are.    And people who are not so interest in the truth as propagating their misinformation are well aware of this.  There is a reason that Bush administration officials work in talking points.  If you keep hearing people say “the form of a mushroom cloud” for days on end, we tend to believe it, not because it’s true, but because, on a social level, we’re more comfortable when we agree with people;



2. those who conformed often found excuses:

   this ties into the concepts of diffusion of responsibility and cognitive dissonance I’ve discussed before.  We want to conform but, more importantly, we want to think that our reasons for doing so are for some other reason.  So we have cognitive dissonance: that niggling little sense inside ourselves that something doesn’t match, even if we can’t articulate what that something is.  So, instead, we pretend to ourselves that we’re conforming because we didn’t understand the issue, or we didn’t perceive the lines properly.  

   But the key thing is that having everyone else give the wrong answer gives impetus for the subjects to do so as well, but it leaves them with more cognitive dissonance — “I gave the wrong answer, but I’m not the sort of person who would give the wrong answer just because everyone else does” gets transformed, internally to, giving the wrong answer because “I didn’t understand the question” or “my eyesight was poor.”  We create these ready-made excuses to avoid responsibility for our own behavior;



3. having just one person dissent greatly reduces conformity:

   this is crucial, and it’s big.

   If we want truth to matter, dissent is important.  This is why those few voices opposing the invasion and occupation of Iraq at the time it started were essential.  It’s not that we were going to change anything in the short term.  It’s that having those voices out there to keep that niggling thought in our mind that what so many people are saying, even if consistent, is flawed.  It took a few years but consistent dissent paid off.

   It didn’t even have to be about knowing the right answer.  Just consistent questioning of the party line was essential.   The press, as a whole, failed us back then.  The didn’t dissent, nor did they ask important questions.  It was up to the blogs to handle the dissent;

Think about diffusion of responsibility again: having people in authority gives us cover when we, as a country, commit crimes against humanity.

Let me say right now, by the way that, contrary to popular belief, I don’t think Americans are stupid.  We are, however, complacent and we’re conformists.  So we plead ignorance:  

I didn’t know that that was torture.

Everyone kept telling me we don’t torture.

If there were torture going on, I’m sure someone would put a stop to it.

It’s not our fault.  Someone else is doing it.  Hey, let’s talk about EYE-leeg-AHL immigration instead.  Didn’t you hear those folks are stealing our jobs?

So we ignore the issues, because our authorities are telling us that something else is going on.  Or we ignore them because everyone else is.

But we do know better than that.

And we can, as a people, be better than that.

So– outside of the blogosphere– outside of our personal ramblings and writings, what can we do to give people that dissent they need to give them the permission to look beyond the obvious?  What can we do to push one another to think beyond the simple?

I have no easy answers to this, but I’d love to hear what the rest of you have to say.

As you all know, the secular-hedonism forces in the country are doing everything they can to attack the valuable cultural icon of the Solstice.  To wit:

• People are refraining from saying “joyful Solstice,” replacing it with such heathen phrases as “happy holidays,” “happy New Year,” “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Chaunakah;”


• Our traditional solstice symbols, such as the star and wreath, have been co-opted by the forces of Christmas;


• Stores across the country have abandoned their stock of solstice-specific merchandise.  You can find Dradles, mangers and other merchandise, but nowhere can you find solstice-specific items;

Want to help end this anti-Solstice scourge?  We at the Department of Pagan Enthusiasm (DOPE) have prepared a short list of tasks you can incorporate into your everyday life.  See below the fold for this list.

Great.  So you’re on board with our pro-solstice campaign and ready to fight the scourges of the anti-Solstice agenda.  There’s a lot you can do to help:

1. organize letter writing campaigns: see a store that ignores our great and glorious Solstice?  Write them a letter.  Get your friends to do it, too.  Use phrases like “merchants of the forces of hedonism” and “supporting the powers of darkness;”


2. picket people who refuse to say “joyful solstice.”  Be sure not to just picket their places of business, but their homes as well.  If they object, leave sheaths of wheat on their doorstep.  They’ll get the message and shape up in no time;


3. see a tv program that doesn’t sponsor any pro-Solstice activities? write them letters, too, but also focus on their advertisers.  Ask the people who advertise on their show if they’ve ever had a bunch of angry pagans outside their offices.  If that doesn’t scare them, nothing will;


4. sabotage events supporting other holidays that exclude the Solstice: get a job as a mall Santa and eat lots of cabbage and beans before your shift.  If anyone asks, blame it on the elves;


5. bumper sticker your car: there are some great bumper stickers available form our shop: “Remember the Solstice!” and “12-21: not just a palindrome” are two of our best sellers.  But be sure to not stick to just bumper stickering your own vehicles.  Be sure to bumper other peoples’ cars as well.  Best to do this late at night so they drive around with our message of hope and peace for hours before they find out;


6. there is no number six;


7. see a manger scene? Get a bunch of “it’s a girl!” balloons and tie them to the hands of the wise men.  Tie them to the crib as well and make sure to put a pink bow on the baby’s head;


8. fight the snowmen: snowmen have been transformed from their traditional pagan status so as to no longer have their connection to traditional pagan rituals and rites.  They are no longer our allies and must now be seen as our enemies.  When you encounter a snowman, you may fight it through a variety of means.   Hair dryers are effective, but it’s difficult to find an easy to use outlet near many, so we recommend carrying a carafe of hot coffee.  Its effect is similar to that of “holy” water on vampires.  (vampires are neutral in this fight, so please don’t make your coffee with holy water.  It will be perceived as a threat by them, and the last thing we need is for them to ally with Christians);

We hope this update on the War on Solstice has been helpful.  With your help, we can defeat the forces of anti-paganism and bring society into conformity with our pantheistic tree-hugging dirt worship, which everyone knows, is the One True Religion.  And remember, if anyone challenges you, you’re doing this for their own good.  Just tell them that and everything should be fine.

I will end this message from the front lines in the culture wars with a traditional pagan litany:

Never give up.  

Never surrender.

I will warn everyone now: this post is a bit wonky and it’s about (zzzzzzzzzzzzz) due process and legal standards:

Per Yahoo News / AFP:

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday judges had greater leeway in handing down sentences, allowing courts to address the disparity in punishments for crack and powder cocaine trafficking.

The high court sided with a judge who gave the same sentence for drug traffickers in either form of cocaine, despite a 1986 federal law that calls for a 100:1 ratio — making the sale of one gram of crack cocaine as serious an offense as 100 grams of powder cocaine.

This is an outstanding development and one that, given how conservative some of the judges are, suggests that the conservative nature of the Supreme Court, while still a problem, is not as complete and overarching problem as I’d believed.

In the case above, and one other, the Court this week has ruled that judges are not required to enact sentences as severe as the guidelines presented by law.  In another case, they ruled that just having a gun is not the same as using it:

In a 9-0 decision, the court said the tough anti-crime provision does not apply to traffickers who trade drugs for guns.

[…]

The issue in the case was whether receiving a gun in exchange for drugs constitutes “use” of the gun under federal law.

The federal government “may say that a person ‘uses’ a firearm simply by receiving it in a barter transaction, but no one else would,” wrote Justice David Souter. “Given ordinary meaning and the conventions of English, we hold that a person does not ‘use’ a firearm” under federal law “when he receives it in trade for drugs.”

The judiciary is an important body and for some time now, conservatives have been working to diminish its power.  Both these rulings fly in the face of that, suggesting that judges do have the experience and perspective to decide what is and is not an appropriate sentence.  The rulings, despite the court’s conservative leanings, do a good job of restoring judicial authority without allowing judges to greatly exceed reasonable standards.

So, yes, we have a conservative court.  It’s the same court that decided not to hear the appeal of a death row inmate whose lawyer was mentally ill.   And that’s a problem.   We still need to restore balance to this court and to do so, we’ve got to eliminate Republican rule in the White House.  But in the meantime, our law is not yet fractured (though it is definitely suffering from some cracks).  I’m not sure what’s going to happen next.  Alito and Thomas are probably not going to surprise anyone.  Kennedy is now the swing vote on many issues, and he alternates between reasonable and idiotic, so who can tell?  Scalia is, well, Scalia.  He’s going to be an arrogant bastard, but sometimes he’s an arrogant bastard on the right side of the law.  

We’ve got some interesting cases coming up: rights of Americans detained in Iraq to be tried under US law… cruel and unusual punishment in death row cases.

I have to say, I doubt I’ll like the outcome in these cases, but I am becoming more convinced that the justices are, mostly, acting independently.  They may be doing things I don’t always like, but they’re basing those decisions on their own ideology, not on which political allegiances they’ll piss off.

From a low point of Bush v. Gore (and I do mean low — probably the lowest point I’ve seen on the court in my lifetime), the court seems to have managed to turn itself back into an independent, if flawed, body once again.

For background, on this story, I’ve tagged all the related stories at Green Mountain Daily (GMD), so they can all be accessed via this link.

The short summary: VT state police went to at least three pharmacies in the state, and asked them for large scale data dumps of patient records.  Green Mountain Daily found out, and a team effort brought this whole thing out into the open.

That said, I will once again quote the fourth amendment, but marked up the way I think that it’s seen by some individuals:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This, on the other hand, is how I think it applies in this case:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Before I continue, I want to note again that none of this would have hit the way it did if not for the work at Green Mountain Daily.  

So here’s what’s happened since I wrote yesterday morning:

Late Friday (trash day), an article showed up in Vermont’s Rutland Herald: State police admit to improper search.  A few choice excerpts:

MONTPELIER – The Vermont State Police admitted Friday that detectives recently asked three pharmacies to hand over all their information on patients’ use of powerful painkillers.

The actions came despite a directive from state law enforcement officials not to use indiscriminate searches.

Lt. John Flanagan said three state police detectives requested that information from three pharmacies in Vermont during the last two weeks, but that supervisors have now put a stop to that effort.

“Mistakes were made,” Flanagan said. “From our perspective this is a training issue and we have taken steps to remedy it.”

Now… this is really quite interesting, because the day before Major Tom L’Esperance, was saying things that were a bit different.  Green Mountain Daily’s John Odum offers his own perspective:

This directly and completely contradicts what Major Tom L’Esperance was desperately spinning saying on Mark Johnson’s show. In that appearance (and you should listen to the podcast – it would seem to be a complete fantasyland account based on what we now know), he insisted it was an isolated misunderstanding at one pharmacy, and proceeded with an elaborately detailed counter-history of the incident. I’m not saying he personally made it up – but somebody sure did. Circling the wagons doesn’t work when the wheels all fall off.

I will pause to give a brief nod to Air America’s Rachel Maddow here, because my next point is relevant to an issue she frequently discusses.  “Trash Day” is political jargon for Friday afternoon.  It’s generally considered to be the best possible time to dump information that you’d prefer not get out there, but is going to get out one way or another.  By issuing a press release about something on a Friday afternoon, it tends to get lost in the news cycle and disappear over the weekend, hopefully (from the point of view of the releaser) to fade under the importance of other stories.

I strongly suspect that’s what happened here.  First they defended it while pretending it wasn’t going on:

Calls to Sleeper’s office Wednesday were forwarded to the State Police’s criminal division in Waterbury. When asked about the allegations, Major Thomas L’Esperance would not directly answer if troopers had attempted to collect mass amounts of patient information.

“If they have, it was with the goal of stopping the potential spread of deadly drugs on the street,” L’Esperance said.

Then they pretended it wasn’t as bad as was said (url is mp3 download link):

It’s not happened across the state.  Has it happened at other pharmacies?  Absolutely… it’s not happening… uh… like the article would want people to believe…

and, in the same interview, called it a “communication” problem:

communication is the key and I just want to be sure that your listeners are at ease… Anthony describes two now.  I only have information about one.  It was a communication issue between the trooper and the pharmacist.

Then, last night, provided a new story:

Mistakes were made,” Flanagan said. “From our perspective this is a training issue and we have taken steps to remedy it.”

So here’s what it boils down to, at least for me: I don’t know which version(s) of the story are true, but I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this.   The reassurances by the state police (once again from the Rutland Herald) aren’t of major comfort to me (emphasis mine):

The admission from the State Police came late Friday afternoon after the agency issued a two-page press release that detailed the new efforts to stop the illegal sale of prescription drugs, but did not admit any errors.

“Specifically, the allegations in these cases are that the Vermont State Police requested Schedule II prescription records from three particular pharmacies without a nexus to specific criminal activity,” the press release read. “Such conduct, if true, would not be in violation of state law but would be a deviation from the directive given to the Vermont State Police by the commissioner of public safety.”

Flanagan clarified later that these situations did occur. In the future, state police would only ask for prescription information when investigating a specific criminal allegation, he explained, as had been the process for years.

The absurdity at this point would be funny if not for the fact that these our our civil rights we’re discussing.  For all I know, this could have been a genuinely good faith effort to try to stem the tides of drugs, but if that’s the case, why the slow bleed of news and the changing of stories throughout the week?  Why the contradicting stories?  Why the spin cycle?  Why not just say “we tried something that we thought was the right thing to do but it’s clear that this is causing confusion and frustration, so let’s work to come up with a plan for approaching this from a public safety issue that still lets everyone feel as though their rights are being respected?”  

But this sort of approach that they’re using?  It is so not working.  

From my own point of view, three things need to happen at this point:

1. the Vermont state legislature has to announce (soon) that it will be holding hearings on this issue and revising the loopholes in the law which allow for it;


2. Vermont Governor Jim Douglas needs to address this and clarify whether any of this approach was signed off on by the Governor’s office and what actions he will take to assure us that no such abuses will take place in the future;


3. an opinion has to be issued by the Vermont attorney general as to whether or not the actions taken by the police in this case were legal under Vermont law and a similar one needs to be issued from the Federal level about compliance with HIPAA.

I’m not saying anyone needs to be arrested over this.  I’m not even saying anyone needs to be fired over this.  But I need something to happen that tells me that this is something being taken seriously as a real issue, not just something that gets taken out with the trash on late Friday afternoon.

This has been crossposted to Daily Kos.  Note: I wrote the diary intended for both audiences, GMD and Kos, so I apologize if I spend too much time explaining Vermont politics or history, but wanted to be thorough enough for both audiences without having a radically different document from one to the other –julie

On Tuesday, I blogged about a breaking story in Vermont: Kiss your 4th amendment goodbye: VT State Police collect medical data.  Since then, a couple things have happened:

1. the press finally hit this, and it’s broken big in Vermont’s Rutland Herald and Times Argus;
2. we’ve done some research of our own, and have learned a bit more;

After the fold, I’ll summarize some of what we at GMD (Green Mountain Daily) have learned, and what we learned from the Herald article as well.

First, a very strange update from the December 6 Mark Johnson show (the url links to downloadable mp3 of the interview).  What I’m transcribing below starts about 1m10s into the audio, from Major Thomas L’Esperance, during which he stumbles through his words quite a few times.  This is after Mark Johnson asks “Major, Anthony says here that there are a number of other pharmacies:”

I’ll have to find out more about exactly what he’s saying… I’ll need to speak with the people that were involved…

Johnson later interjects “you were saying earlier that this sort of practice wasn’t happening and Anthony seems pretty convinced that it is.”  (“Anthony,” is Anthony Otis, a lobbyist for Vermont pharmacists).  Again from L’Esperance:

It’s not happened across the state.  Has it happened at other pharmacies?  Absolutely… it’s not happening… uh… like the article would want people to believe…

Then later in the interview, again from L’Esperance:

Communication is the key and I just want to be sure that your listeners are at ease… Anthony describes two now.  I only have information about one.  It was a communication issue between the trooper and the pharmacist.

This was an astonishing interview.  If you listen closely enough, I think you can hear the guy flailing about in the wind.  In the context of some of the other information we’ve got here, this could get quite interesting.

Next, an update on the story I posted a few days ago, originally posted by John here:

UPDATE: Based on confirmation from law enforcement sources, pharmacies that were approached by the State Police on Friday November 30th and from legal sources representing people affected by State Police conduct last Friday, GMD can add the following to the reporting that has occurred already.

• The Department of Public Safety was planning last weeks pharmacy checks (“Fishing Derby Friday”) for several weeks.




• The State Police visited multiple pharmacies on Friday November 30th.




• At least two pharmacies were told to by the State Police to turn over patient profiles for every patient who received a schedule II prescription from that pharmacy.




• At least one pharmacy was told it would be required to update the patient profile information with the police every two weeks.




• At several pharmacies the police merely introduced themselves to the pharmacist, gave their business cards and asked the pharmacist to call the police officer if they encountered any suspicious behavior such as indications of “Doctor shopping” or prescription fraud.




• Late Friday, due to intense push back and complaints from pharmacists who were concerned about requests from the Vermont State Police that they reveal confidential and federally protected medical information about their customers, State Police management sent an email to all State Police involved with the pharmacy checks throughout the state instructing them to cease the pharmacy checks. After the email went out, Fish Derby Friday ceased (for now).

Kudos to Dan Barlow who published a well-balanced and thorough article about Fishing Derby Friday. – odum

Next, some choice excerpts from the Rutland Herald:

Officers with the Vermont Department of Public Safety appear to have the authority to request and search through pharmacy databases under a 1967 law. But Commissioner Kerry Sleeper told lawmakers last year they would only use that authority for specific criminal investigations.

I’ll add a little context here: with respect to this specific law, legislators actually considered removing the police seek and grab provisions from the law, but were assured in testimony by state officials that the law would never be used for such a broad-based information grab.  It’s that testimony that generated the report referenced in the next paragraph:

“(The law) is not used in an unfettered manner to search randomly through records looking for possible crimes,” according to a Vermont Department of Health report, based on comments made by Sleeper, that was given to the Legislature in December 2006.

This testimony is documented in the VT legislature’s “Report on Act 205, Sec. 3 Relating to 18 V.S.A. § 4218” (link to pdf download per GMD’s archive).  Here’s an excerpt:

Commissioner Sleeper reports that during his 29 years of service at DPS he is not aware of one example when law enforcement used section 4218 as a means of randomly, and without cause, examining pharmaceutical records.²…  he is not aware of any complaints or expressions of concern indicating that the sought information was improperly utilized.

Now, note: that segment comes with a footnote.  Here’s what’s enclosed in the footnote (emphasis mine):

Years ago, diversion investigators did occasionally conduct a general search of pharmaceutical records when they were aware that controlled substances from pharmacies were being diverted into a particular community, but did not know who the source of the drugs was or what pharmacy dispensed the drugs. DPS would argue that such access was with cause. In such cases the investigators were able to review paper records looking for a pattern that would point them to a suspect. Even then however, the investigators began their search with relevant pharmacies (i.e., pharmacies in communities affected or nearby by geographic area of concern). With the demise of paper records and the creation of HIPAA such a search is either no longer possible or extremely difficult to conduct. See… pages 7-9 for a discussion on the impact of HIPAA and the obligation of health care provider to make sure that HIPAA permits disclosure for a particular health record.

What’s on pages 7-9?  Well, this paragraph for one:

In the event the pharmacist determines that HIPAA does not permit the disclosure, he/she is required by HIPAA to refuse disclosure. Since HIPAA would preempt state law in this case, section 4218 of Title 18 would not control and the pharmacist would not be in violation of section 4218 for refusing to disclose.

More from the Herald:

Calls to Sleeper’s office Wednesday were forwarded to the State Police’s criminal division in Waterbury. When asked about the allegations, Major Thomas L’Esperance would not directly answer if troopers had attempted to collect mass amounts of patient information.

“If they have, it was with the goal of stopping the potential spread of deadly drugs on the street,” L’Esperance said.

Okay.

Let’s pause for a moment.

Now let’s try that again:

When asked about the allegations, Major Thomas L’Esperance would not directly answer if troopers had attempted to collect mass amounts of patient information.

“If they have, it was with the goal of stopping the potential spread of deadly drugs on the street,” L’Esperance said.

So let’s think about that again.

He didn’t want to say whether or not it was happening, but he said, quite directly, that there was a good reason for them to be doing it.

I don’t know about you, but that rings a few alarm bells for me.

So where are we with this?  We’re still learning.  My own experience is that it’s common for state agencies who have done something they know is going to cause them grief (even if they’re sure they’re justified in having done it) to release in dribbles.  It starts with “it was an isolated incident” and evolves into “it was a few isolated incidents” and eventually becomes something like “okay, we did come into all your homes and steal your puppies, but it was for a good reason” and, of course, the eventual “oh, no, we never approved the stealing of the puppies– it was something taken on by a few subordinates at the local level.”  

So, really, we don’t know how extensive this was or was intended to be, but it appears as though we’re at the point where we can all take a breath and get this brought in front of the legislature to get some real clarity about the law, the obligations of the state police, their compliance with both federal AND state law and push hard to make sure the legislature takes this seriously in the next session.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m incredibly happy with the work that came out of GMD on this, not because we necessarily stopped or prevented anything, but because we:

1. shined a bright light on actions which may very well have violated privacy rights;
2. scooped a story several days before any other Vermont media did;
3. alerted a lot of Vermonters and people across the country about a potential abuse of rights on the part of the police;
4. did all this with no special equipment, money or resources: we made phone calls and sent e-mails.

In other words, anyone can do this.  

Now that I’ve had time to process the same-sex marriage discussion in Brattleboro, I have a few thoughts that I’d like to share.  There is no wisdom or special insight in this article, just a few thoughts that seem to me to be the right thing to say.

First, to get the political thing out of the way: I’m still pissed off at Governor Douglas for saying that same-sex marriage is “divisive” while, at the same time, using the issue to fundraise.

That said, I want to talk about the hearing itself.  I don’t think anyone went into that hearing expecting to change their mind, and I doubt anyone did change their mind.  What happened, however, at least from my point of view, was transformational in a very different fashion.

People who had supported civil unions at the time now feel as though they’re inadequate and now think that they’re helping to perpetuate an unjust system.  People who had been willing to accept civil unions as an incremental step have simply moved beyond that and if that room was any indication, we’ve got the real energy to say “this is absurd.”  The people who support full legal rights for same sex couples were so vibrant and clear last night.  The people who oppose them?  They didn’t show.  Not a one.

So we had dozens of speakers, one after another, saying why civil unions aren’t enough and why marriage rights are so necessary.  And no, my mind was not changed– I agreed with every one of them.

But I was really moved by this, in a major way.  The stories were so personal and I’ve heard so many of these stories that I really thought I was beyond being moved by them.

I’m not.

I listened to people talk about history, about love, about commitment, about their children, about their parents, about their spouses and their ex-spouses and everyone in that room was just such an important part of that.

Something changed for me last night.  I’m not sure what it was, but for the first time, I think, I see same-sex marriage as inevitable.  Not “likely in the next 20 years,” not “possible in the next decade.”  

Inevitable.

And it’s really simple why: it’s true.  it’s real.  There was a time when I thought the law was a way to propel society forward, that having same sex marriage will make people recognize it.  That may still be true, but now it’s the law that’s behind the people.  Same-sex marriage is real and it’s happening today and it’s the law that needs to catch up with it.

We, in Vermont, are better than to have second class citizens.  A law which specifically and intentionally carves out a place for some of us to be second class diminishes all of us.  Laws which are designed to “protect’ marriage are laws based in fear and they, instead, demean marriage, making it seem to be something weak, brittle and frail.

Laws which treat Vermonters as though we need to be protected from same-sex marriage, as though it is a threat to us?  These are laws that should embarrass us all.  

We are better than this.

We are stronger than this.

And when same-sex marriage finally does come to the state of Vermont, just as will happen when it comes to the United States as a whole, the reaction will not be one of shock or dismay.  It will, quite frankly, be five short words:

“What took you so long?“

Tonight’s Same Sex Marriage Hearing starts with a 5pm info session followed by a meeting at 6:30pm.  I will post notes throughout the evening in the comments section, many of which will be just thoughts off the top of my head.

I am doing this on three different blogs, so please be patient.  More in the comments section.

UPDATE: Based on confirmation from law enforcement sources, pharmacies that were approached by the State Police on Friday November 30th and from legal sources representing people affected by State Police conduct last Friday, GMD can add the following to the reporting that has occurred already.

• The Department of Public Safety was planning last weeks pharmacy checks (“Fishing Derby Friday”) for several weeks.
• The State Police visited multiple pharmacies on Friday November 30th.
• At least two three pharmacies were told to by the State Police to turn over patient profiles for every patient who received a schedule II prescription from that pharmacy.
• At least one pharmacy was told it would be required to update the patient profile information with the police every two weeks.
• At several pharmacies the police merely introduced themselves to the pharmacist, gave their business cards and asked the pharmacist to call the police officer if they encountered any suspicious behavior such as indications of “Doctor shopping” or prescription fraud.
• Late Friday, due to intense push back and complaints from pharmacists who were concerned about requests from the Vermont State Police that they reveal confidential and federally protected medical information about their customers, State Police management sent an email to all State Police involved with the pharmacy checks throughout the state instructing them to cease the pharmacy checks. After the email went out, Fish Derby Friday ceased (for now).

Kudos to Dan Barlow who published a well-balanced and thorough article about Fishing Derby Friday. – odum

It’s always good to start with the constitution, this time from Amendment IV:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Yesterday, Green Mountain Daily scooped all the Vermont news outlets by publishing a story about state police collecting pharmacy records across the state.  You can find the original piece here.

A summary, after the jump

per Odum’s post from yesterday:

GMD has learned that State Police representatives are going to Vermont Pharmacies and demanding complete dumps of all information about patients with Schedule II prescriptions (the class of medications that include prescription drugs with street value). After talking to a few pharmacists, I found one in Franklin County that confirmed they had been approached, and had been advised by the state that they did, indeed need to comply with the request. Needless to say, he wasn’t too happy about it.

What’s even more disturbing? When I asked if he knew of any other pharmacies that were being mined for data in this way, he responded that it was his understanding that this was a process that was to take place across the state.

So here’s what we’ve found since:

1. it appears as though this is a broad-reaching sweep of medical records.  I.e., if you receive schedule II (restricted narcotic) medications and you also receive Prozac or Viagra or anything else that you thought was private, you were wrong;
2. there appears to be no mechanism in place to notify people when their records have been turned over to state police;
3. there appears to be no mechanism in place to warn people that their records may be turned over to state police.

This does not come without its irony.  As Doug Hoffer posted in the comments at GMD:

the state should NOT be carrying out warrantless searches. And pharmacists should not be required to participate. Indeed, this is happening at the same time the state is considering a suit against the phone companies for turning over records to Homeland Security.

We are definitely through the rabbit hole.

But it turns out there’s an interesting background to this story.  A few weeks ago, Vermont Public Radio produced a piece about violent crime and drug use.  Some choice quotes:

…Vermont police are also seeing enormous problems with illegal pharmaceuticals, especially oxycontin.

This comes at a time when Baker says all law enforcement agencies in the state are understaffed.

(Baker) “The local police departments are carrying around 60 vacancies. The state police are carrying somewhere around 20 vacancies. And some of that’s attributed to financial reasons. But in many cases it’s about recruiting and the inability to find qualified individuals.”

(Host) Baker says modern-day police candidates need computer and problem solving skills-skills that can earn them higher salaries in other industries.

Baker says the state has already started talking about long-term solutions to these problems. Meanwhile, he says police are working on short-term strategies to combat crime more effectively with the resources they have.

So here’s the burning question: is this one of their creative solutions?  Instead of targeting criminals, target everybody who has ever had contact with one of these medications?

I want to mention a couple quick items here about this before I close:

1. this is a great example of the power of blogs and web-based media.  We found the story.  We researched the story.  We got it out there.  As far as I can tell so far, no one else is reporting it, which means that asking the other Vermont media why they’re not covering it might be a good idea;
2. this diary is built almost entirely upon the work of people who are not me.   I’m posting it here to keep the story in the public view and to see if we can get broader coverage of it, but it is not my own research or work that discovered any of it.

As usual, we have choices here.  Pharmacies are, as far as we can tell, complying with the state police.  

As citizens, we do have the right to call our pharmacies and ask if our records have been released and to whom.

As citizens, we do have the right to sue pharmacies which release our records without valid medical purpose.

As citizens, we do have the right to speak out about this and publicize it whenever possible.  

Or, of course, we can just hope nothing bad happens.

Databases aren’t just places to collect information.  They’re places to lose information.  In 2006,  an employee at the Vermont State Colleges system lost a laptop containing social security numbers, payroll information and other data.  This isn’t just about the police collecting data.  It’s about an underfunded department securing it and keeping it out of the wrong hands.

So I’ll end with a few questions:

Who do you think controls this data and where do you think it will be stored?  

Do you think the state police have the resources to keep it all in house, or do you think they’ll end up privatizing the information?

Do you think that everyone who comes into contact with this information will keep all of it private?