Tag Archives: access

CarolinaNorth

Carolina North: June 15th’s Missing Documents

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Quick note, the Town, this morning, has fixed the links and added the missing Carolina North material.

Obviously well less than 24 hours prior to the “public hearing”. Certainly undercuts claims of transparency and support of public review.

In any case, here is tonight’s agenda with the missing supporting material:

Community, UNC

Robert Seymour: UNC HealthCare Ombudsman?

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Last Oct. 14th, 2006 Kirk Ross (Carrboro Citizen) first reported on Rev. Robert Seymour’s appointment as a citizen advocate to UNC’s HealthCare system board.

As I noted then (A Healthy Sign, Robert Seymour Appointed to UNC Health Care Board) it was fabulous news.

This morning, the UNC Board of Governors approved the appointment of Rev. Bob Seymour, who served as minister of Binkley Baptist for 30 years, to the UNC Health Care board. Seymour was picked for the post by UNC President Erskine Bowles after complaints about the hospital system’s treatment of elderly patients and agressive collection tactics. Bowles agreed with petitioners that a citizen rep was needed on the board.

You might also remember Bob’s comments on the aging of Orange County Robert Seymour on Our Community’s Fit, Frail and Fragile

Bob’s recent WCHL1360 commentary [MP3] “welcomes your criticisms or your compliments relative to your assessment of the care offered and received at UNC Hospitals”.

Sounds like an ombudsman to me.

Robert’s continuing work is reflected in this Jan. 23rd, 2997 UNC Healthcare status report [PDF] simply titled “Assuring Access at UNC Health Care”.

Government, Ruminations, Technology

Can you hear me now? Not if you’re the FCC!

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Following in the footsteps of Bush’s Justice department, the FCC has thrown in the towel on further investigations of allege crimes by Bellsouth, Verizon and others.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will not pursue complaints about a spy agency’s access to millions of telephone records because it cannot obtain classified material, the FCC’s chairman said in a letter released on Tuesday.

Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, had asked communications regulators to investigate a newspaper report that AT&T Inc. (T.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Verizon Communications (VZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and BellSouth Corp. (BLS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) gave access to and turned over call records to help the National Security Agency fight terrorists.

“The classified nature of the NSA’s activities makes us unable to investigate the alleged violations,” FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in the May 22 letter to Markey.

Verizon and BellSouth have denied turning over telephone call records to the NSA. BellSouth has demanded USA Today retract claims in its story.

“We can’t have a situation where the FCC, charged with enforcing the law, won’t even begin an investigation of apparent violations of the law because it predicts the administration will roadblock any investigations citing national security,” Markey said in response to Martin.

Reuters

Nothing to see here. Move along, move along…