<!--StartFragment --> Word on Capitol Hill is that the President is determined to sign a bill renewing PATRIOT on September 11th. Make sure that the legislation he signs is the SAFE Act instead -- contact your legislator today!

<!--StartFragment -->Lawmakers voted Wednesday to block the Justice Department and the FBI from using the Patriot Act to peek at library records and bookstore sales slips... The House voted 238-187.

<!--StartFragment --> The head of the American Conservative Union, David Keene, said he was upset that the administration appeared to be encouraging the Patriot Act provisions' renewal through the more secretive Senate Intelligence Committee, despite pledges of openness and of a willingness to consider compromise. ...

<!--StartFragment --> Keene is particularly upset with Atty. Gen. Gonzales, who has agreed in recent meetings with conservative activists, participants said, to the principle of open discussion and careful review of the Patriot Act before 16 of its most important provisions are renewed.

Big Brother is on the march. A plan to subject all children to mental health screening is underway, and the pharmaceutical corporations are gearing up for bigger sales of antidepressant and psychostimulant drugs.

<!--StartFragment --> WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI would get expanded powers to subpoena records without the approval of a judge or grand jury in terrorism investigations under Patriot Act revisions approved Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The NHIN has been proposed by data collectors, data miners, data profiteers, and public and private purveyors of health surveillance and statistically-devised rationing of care. These include government agencies, health plans, disease management companies, researchers, and the more than 200 members of WEDI, the Working Group on Electronic Data Interchange.

Michael Ostrolenk explains the threat to gun ownership from the war against privacy 05-28-05.

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Creeping its way slowly through Washington's corridors of power recently has been a proposal that would allow the federal government and the higher-education community to create a national database of personal information on American college students.

Newt Gingrich thinks health care is more efficient with more government.

So do Hillary Rodham Clinton, Patrick Kennedy and Tim Murphy...

They have hooked up to put everyone's medical records in cyberspace -- accessible by patients, doctors, nurses, hospitals, insurance companies and hackers hoping to learn everything about you -- including your Social Security number. ...

The potential for abuse is extraordinary, according to Michael Ostrolenk, director of government affairs for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. It was founded in 1943 to preserve private medicine. "There are so many holes in the privacy and protection of health care information."

Unauthorized accessing of supposedly secure national databases seems to occur daily.

Ostrolenk also questioned the lack of any deterrent in the act. "Funny, there are no penalties for unauthorized disclosure." ...

<!--StartFragment --> By Declan McCullagh