Hello, I am writing to you as both a representative of the family history research community, and as a professional in the quality assurance and performance of security in computer software and networks for both military and commercial systems. H5158 proponents are still misleading the public on the contents of the bill. I have gotten reports that indicate many MA House Representatives have not fully analyzed this bill. If your representative has not given you all 36 pages of the H5158 text, you are missing the full context - and perhaps being mislead into the notion that this bill increases access to Public Records. It does not. A carefully structured and brief "fact sheet" response does not address the full import. Current MA law gives EVERYONE access to all Public Records. All Vital Records (birth, marriage and death) are Public Records - except those protected by confidentiality clauses for items like illegitimate and still born births. Today's genealogists and family members are simply employing the access rights for ALL Public Records - in person or in writing or over the phone or through email and fax or other normal communications. Any "fact sheet" response or short excerpts from the bill do not take into account the sequence of the clauses, subclauses and the changes in the current law. H5158 is a labrynthe of clause reference dependencies where custodians are given discretion over public access to vitals ( no longer Public Records) without proper training or compensation for this new security role. Surcharges will be added to the records fees to pay for computerization, but are insufficient for the scope of changes required throughout the Commonwealth. H5158 has made Social Security number use, correlation of births and deaths and validation of vitals for the MA Department of Motor Vehicles, University of Massachusetts, firearms records, deadbeat parents and other business use into a tail wagging a very large and complex domestic animal! The budgetary impact on public and private systems would create havoc and simultaneously erase the wise foundations of a democracy laid by the first governments of Massachusetts currently maintained in open Public Records preservation and access. Under current law, town clerks and other municipal employees, as custodians of Public Records, only have to learn about a handful of confidentiality exclusions. Even so, there are ongoing reports in the news and complaints to Secretary Galvin's office about the well-intentioned, but unlawful, prevention of public access to Public Records by municipal employees. With H5158, these custodians will be come overburdened with complex security and judgement issues - for which they are not trained, nor compensated. Instead of the regular, but largely informal, current reporting of instances of public access being denied, both towns and the state will be subject to formal actions for failure to provide the proper access. H5158 does not provide either proper administrative procedures or funding. With the new law proposal of H5158, the post 1910/1950 vital records are never going to be Public Records again. Only limited access will be given to parties who make requests and prove their direct (2 generation only) IN WRITING to the person of record or legal administrators and property rights etc - subject to the discretion of the custodians - FOREVER. Your great grandchildren will never be able to access your records in the future unless, perhaps you write out your permission and file it in a safe place. Under H5158, genealogists may ONLY have limited records access IF a first-degree (individual, grandparent, parent, child, spouse, sibling) gives written permission - no cousin, aunt/uncle or other relative research if you can't contact a living first degree relative. Collateral family information for family health problems is blocked! The Massachusetts Genealogical Council (MGC) is unalterably opposed to the Public Records closing in H5158 and continues to support the MA Senate bill S2302 http://www.state.ma.us/legis/bills/st02302.htm Other opponents to H5158 include the MA Office of the Secretary of State http://www.state.ma.us/sec/ , NEHGS http://www.newenglandancestors.org/about/contact/ and the MA Newspaper Publisher's Association (70 Washington St., Salem, MA 01970 phone 978-465-7539 or E-Mail: plantejr@seacoast.com ). The MA Association of Town Clerks favors the bill! There has been an ongoing issue with MA town clerks and other municipal record custodians allowing the access to Public Records - see this week's Globe article about Framingham MA for the well-intentioned, but misguided beliefs under current law of full Public Record access http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/203/west/Using_stealth_consultant_rates_town_services+.shtml A Globe special report in April 2001 (referenced in above article) is available from the Boston Globe archives for a fee. The search excerpt begins as follows - "ACCESS DENIED Published on April 8, 2001. ... PUBLIC RECORDS ARE TREATED LIKE PRIVATE PROPERTY BY MANY LOCAL OFFICIALS, A SURVEY FINDS Many municipal executives said their administrations' failure to comply with the requests during the Globe's survey were aberrations or illustrated their staff's unfamiliarity with the law. "There are a lot of laws that are constantly changing, and yet we are expected to keep up on them," said Michael Sullivan, Medfield's town administrator. "I would rather have my staff err on the side of caution than hand out something we ..." http://boston.com/globe/search/ If, municipal employees do not understand current law for all PUBLIC RECORDS - where there are very few restrictions - you can be sure that the process of having to prove who you are (if you qualify for the H5158 short list) to access records that are no longer Public Records will not be an easy matter! Numerous studies (publicized long before September 11, 2001) show that Identity fraud is conducted largely by folks who are not likely to do real research work in Public Records offices. They only need to go through trash! These studies show that it is cheaper for the credit industry to cover fraud costs, than to do fact checking on applications and/or restrict their "easy credit" web. The credit card industry fills this country's trash bins with millions of offers each day - containing identifying info - because so many people just throw this junk mail away. The largest groups of Identity fraud thieves are - persons connected with the individual (often direct family members, as they have ready access and knowledge), persons who steal trash or wallets or mail or break into homes (where they can get a large amount of identifying information easily), persons who scour obituaries and graveyards or make fraudulent phone calls to the individuals, those who steal records from businesses and electronic schemes. The laws in "36 other states" that restrict vital records access vary widely in their restrictions - NONE remove recent vital records and their indices from the PUBLIC RECORDS forever, as H5158 does. Those states that do have "privacy periods", also have varying types of special features to aid researchers. CT does NOT require genealogists to have written permission from the individual of record. NY provides record certificates marked "for genealogical purposes" only. NH has special remedies for medical research. H5158 is a poorly written bill that ignores the many years of work and discussions between many groups about the pragmatic and historical management issues of Public Records. The patchwork modifications to the previous H132 bill are inconsistent and fraught with problems. Do not be mislead. Get a copy of the entire bill and talk to your representative about the scope for all of the H5158 clauses. Contact the national FGS/NGS Records Preservation and Access Committee for further information on issues outside of Massachusetts as well http://www.fgs.org/fgs-records.htm Further updates will be made available at http://massgencouncil.home.attbi.com/index.htm Sharon Sergeant MGC Program Director http://massgencouncil.home.attbi.com/index.htm __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com