Information Is Power

Terry Allen has written an article about the current state of affairs when it comes to looking at public records. The U.S. Government's Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 will bar genealogists and many others from looking at birth and death certificates for 70 to 100 years. The proposed regulations are now causing widespread concern among state officials.

The regulations impact far more than genealogists. In much of the country, these records have long been invaluable tools for activists, lawyers, and reporters to uncover patterns of illness and pollution that officials miss or ignore.

Activists in Colorado already know what it is like when states bar access to vital records. For years, they fought the Cotter Corporation, claiming that its uranium mining operations were killing residents and workers. Unwilling to rely on the health department, which they claimed had a "cozy" relationship with the polluters, the activists tried to access death records, only to be told that it was illegal in this closed-record state. An editorial in Colorado's Longmont Daily Times-Call lamented, "If there's a situation that makes the case for why death certificates should be available to the public, it is th[is] Superfund area."

Some state officials around the country are questioning whether the new federal regulations themselves illegally tread on states' rights.

You can read Terry Allen's interesting article at http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2488/

My thanks to Paula Hinkel for telling me about the article.

Comments

[Wilson23]

We are facing the same action here in Indiana and I wrote my legislator and voiced my concerns and that I thought that it hurt genealogists greatly and really had nothing to do with Home Land Security or Identy Theft. I am not sure what else we could do to stop such actions other than put pressure on our elected individuals.

[Sally J]

As an archivist, I was taught that public records need to be accessible. Not only for ethical (good government) reasons but also for practical reasons -- as in "why spend resources to organize and preserve materials if no one is ever going to use them?" In my experience it is journalists and genealogists who are the fiercest defenders of access to public records. Why? Because they are the citizens who use them most often. I encourage you to take action on this issue. Write your elected officials or just pick up the phone and call their office. And I thank you most sincerely on behalf of archivists everywhere for your efforts. Don't underestimate your power!!