This report focuses on the pivotal technical issues associated with the National Information Infrastructure program, security and privacy, interoperability, and reliability, and presents the General Accounting Office's findings on these challenges. It is reported that while the structures and services to be offered by the information superhighway…

School district personnel files were traditionally considered private. Since the advent of federal and state open record acts, the private nature of personnel records has come into question. All court cases since 1966, in which a member of the public wanted access to public employee information and a personal privacy exemption was raised as a…

The U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to privacy that requires deputies and jailers to avoid the unnecessary disclosure of sensitive information about a person. This privacy right especially covers Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome-related (AIDS) information, and it even protects the immediate family of persons infected with human…

This four-section paper begins with a brief description of videotex and the paths its development has followed during its short lifespan. The second section examines how videotex systems should present and display information, and how such information should be internally organized so that it is maximally useful for the reader/user. The analysis,…

A study was conducted to develop some understanding of how social experience might be related to public expectations of rights to privacy. A telephone questionnaire was developed which sought information about respondent knowledge, attitudes, and behavior regarding privacy and personal information. A national survey of adults over the age of 18…

This annotated bibliography covers the period from 1974 to 1981, with primary emphasis on documents and publications produced between 1978 and 1981. The majority of the publications cited are U.S. government documents; however, the last section includes relevant monographs, journal articles, and conference papers that were selected by the National…

Lake Charles, Louisiana established a language bank capable of providing interpreters for 20 foreign languages. All participants are volunteers who offer to help free of charge in case of emergencies arising because of the considerable numbers of foreign visitors in the area. Smooth operation of the language bank depends on the following: (1) an…

To determine the treatment of visual journalism by privacy law from the origins of privacy law in 1890 until 1978, an analysis was made of the mass media legal cases occurring between those years. The cases were subjectively divided into three categories: those that established or extended a freedom of the press or the right of a defendant to…

The legal rights of college students have changed substantially over the years, particularly during the 20th century. This paper provides a historical sketch of student rights, including a listing of significant events and cases, from the founding of Harvard College in 1636 to the bicentennial of the Constitution and the 50th anniversary of the…

The first of two parts of this document presents a statement from the American Society of Journalists and Authors which briefly traces the history of censorship from the fourth century B.C. to the present. The second part is a list of resources on censorship and censorship-related materials that are available from the following First Amendment…

The 48 abstracts in the Project SHARE bibliography deal with the use of computerized information systems in day care, education, public assistance, and mental health and local government settings. Effects of standardization on human services and issues of privacy and confidentiality are two of the important questions raised by these documents.…

This chapter provides a synopsis of the regulations of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 and its effect on school recordkeeping policies and procedures. Two basic principles underlie the federal law regarding access to and control over the release of education records, the paper states. They are people's right to know and their…

Reality and the law are forcing us to reexamine the social concepts of privacy as linked to individual rights, and disclosure as an institutional duty. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (Buckley Amendment) establishes the right of parents to have access to their children's school records and to challenge the accuracy and…

This paper examines several United States Supreme Court decisions to evaluate the Court's stance on an individual's right to privacy when that right conflicts with the press right to freedom of expression. Particular attention is paid to the Court's "Rosenbloom" and "Gertz" decisions. The paper concludes that the Supreme Court is trying to…

This paper explores the psychological significance of preserving privacy, the ways in which different kinds of research may threaten privacy, the requirements for minimizing or counteracting such threats, and the conditions under which research representing a certain degree of invasion of privacy can nevertheless be justified. (Author/AM)