Please you California residents contact your elected officials and put a STOP TO THIS! - California Senate Bill 1614 Threatens To Close Genealogy Records California Senate Bill 1614 is a threat to all genealogists. First, it threatens anyone researching California families since this bill, if passed, will reduce access to California records. Secondly, it threatens all genealogists as this could become a precedent, encouraging other states to similarly restrict access to birth and death records. The passage of California Senate Bill 1614 will close the indexes to both birth and death records. These indexes will then be replaced by a "noncomprehensive index" that can only be viewed at the California Department of Health Services and/or in individual county recorders offices. No indexes would be available online, on CD-ROM or in print in any other place. The legislative do-gooders have proposed this obnoxious legislation as a method of preventing identity theft. However, neither the California State Department of Health Services nor any of the county clerks have ever found any incidents where present identity thefts could be linked to either the sale of birth or death certificates or to these indexes. In other words, this piece of legislation is being proposed because someone thinks that there might be a future problem, not because of any recognized past or present issue. The impact to genealogists, however, will be felt immediately if this proposed legislation becomes law. Senate Bill 1614, "Closure of the Birth and Death Records Indexes," passed the California Judiciary Committee on May 7, 2002. It had a rather silly amendment tacked onto it, requiring that people who have already purchased the public domain indexes in the past to now keep the information within the indexes confidential. This retroactive prohibition of previously produced public domain data seems a bit far-fetched to me. Senate Bill 1614 will next be heard in the Appropriations Committee. If it is passed in the Appropriations Committee, it will then go to the Floor of the Senate for a vote. If it passes there, it will go to the State Assembly. Two rules committees in the Assembly must also hear it. Because of the nature of the bill, it should be referred to the Judiciary and then to the Appropriations Committees, in that order. You can follow the developments of this bill on the California State Genealogical Alliance Web site at: http://www.csga.com/legislative_watch.htm. California residents: please contact your state senators and representatives today to tell them your opinion of this bill. You can find the name and e-mail address of your senator at: http://www.senate.ca.gov/~newsen/senators/senators.htp and the name and e-mail of your Assemblyman at: http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/defaulttext.asp.