MAESSEX-L Archives

From: Sharon Sergeant <>
Subject: Massachusetts Genealogical Council HR 10 Alert
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 22:06:03 -0700 (PDT)

Massachusetts Genealogical Council HR 10 Alert


The US Bill from the House of Representatives, H.R. 10 the 9/11 Recommendations Implementation
Act of 2004(HR10) creates unintended consequences for millions of American Citizens, including
but not limited to Adoptees, Retirees, Military and Other Federal Government Employees, Education
and Medical Service Providers, Journalists, Attorneys, Family History Researchers, Genealogists,
Historians, Biographers, Private Investigators, as well as Generations of Under-privileged or
Under-documented Populations.

The Massachusetts Genealogical Council (MGC) was organized in 1980 as an umbrella organization of
genealogical societies throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to monitor legislation
affecting public records access and preservation, and educate the public in responsible family
history research practices. The MGC has examined and testified at Massachusetts numerous
legislative hearings and provided decades of public education seminars.

In addition to the ability of the MGC to understand the impact of proposed legislation for its
members and the research community, the MGC Board of directors is comprised of professionals in
the fields of security, telecommunications, transportation, medicine, data base systems, law,
government and business procedures.

The MGC Board of Directors and Members applaud credible measures for protections against
terrorism, ID Theft and invasion of privacy.

However, the provisions in the Federal Bill HR 10, Chapter 2 creates the most extensive list of
unintended consequences in our decades of experience with proposed legislation.

Within the hundreds of pages of measures proposed in HR 10, we specifically address CHAPTER
2--IMPROVED SECURITY FOR BIRTH CERTIFICATES, as it decimates normality in the every day
activities of citizens, as well as professionals who rely on source and fact checking due
diligence procedures throughout the country.

Open Records, Public Records and Vital Records definitions within each state are rooted in the
origins of the state constitutions, charters and legal systems. Thus each state has built a system
of laws and regulations, and adopted their own specific positions and measures such as certified
versus non-certified or for genealogical or other research purposes only certificates, as well
as privacy periods for Vital Records information access.

David E. Rencher, Chair of the Record Preservation and Access Committee for the Federation of
Genealogical Societies and The National Genealogical Society has already noted that HR-10 Section
3063(d)(2) should at least be modified by adding the following wording to one paragraph:

However, nothing in this Chapter 2 shall be construed to require a State to change its law with
respect to public access to (A) non-certified copies of birth certificates, or to (B) birth
certificates or birth records once a period of 100 years has elapsed from the date of creation of
the certificate or record.

A copy of David Renchers letter to the bill's sponsor, Congressman Dennis Hastert, is available
on the FGS site www.fgs.org/rpa/formalactions.htm


Upon further examination of the full content of HR 10, Chapter 2, the MGC Board of Directors finds
that the entire HR 10 Chapter 2 should be excised from the process that the House and the Senate
will now explore to combine their separate bills to satisfy the 9/11 recommendations:

First, many states, such as Massachusetts, would be required to change their state constitution to
comply with HR 10, Chapter 2.

Second, all states vary widely in their adoption of certified versus un-certified records
procedures, as well as privacy and access periods, and numerous other aspects of Vital Records
administration often combined and intertwined with what that state considers related measures at
the time of enactment.

Next, the crafters of HR 10 clearly are not aware of the escalating unintended consequences of
The Patriots Act, HIPPA and other post-9/11, ID Theft and Privacy legislation:

Genealogists are particularly aware of post-9/11 unintended consequence incidents. The
poignant vignettes of suspicion and trauma are increasing for elderly citizens who were immigrants
during the twentieth century.
In parallel, education and medical system personnel are reporting similar problems,
particularly in the many communities where the latest Federal census in 2000 shows 20 per cent or
more of their population were born outside the US.

HR 10, Chapter 2, Section 3063 (a) specifically provides punative measures for the millions
of individuals in the general population who would be affected by these unrealistic measures:
MINIMUM STANDARDS FOR FEDERAL RECOGNITION.
(a) MINIMUM STANDARDS FOR FEDERAL USE-
(1) IN GENERAL- Beginning 3 years after the date of enactment of this Act, a Federal agency
may not accept, for any official purpose, a birth certificate issued by a State to any person
unless the State is meeting the requirements of this section.

HR 10 now threatens to rescind individual and States rights with sweeping measures:

Additional impositions under HR 10 would jeopardize such every day procedures as Social
Security applications or military enlistment.
Individuals who were born in one state, are often not currently living in the same state
(and therefore have no voting leverage). If the state of their birth contests such sweeping
Federal authority or is simply unable to meet the requirements because the Federal funding does
not address the pre-existing conditions of the states Vital Records, any individual could be
denied recognition of their birth record.

Next, HR 10, Chapter 2, Section 3063 (c) MINIMUM ISSUANCE STANDARDS provides language that further
conflicts with the rights of millions of people:

- The requestor must know all the information on the record, permanently blocking all individuals
whose purpose is to
o correct an erroneous record (an unfortunately growing awareness due to the numerous
transcription problems on both originals and the levels of derivatives introduced by electronic
progress);
o get the record information, including, but not limited to
* states where adoptee rights have been modernized;
* the increasing need of the medical community for genealogical medical histories to treat or
prevent inherited disorders;
* the ability of ethnic and cultural groups (that once responded to discrimination by hiding their
origins) to reclaim their heritage;
* the establishment or correction of property rights that were incorrectly adjudicated or
transferred in the past;
o utilize the Genealogical Proof Method (GPM) in any of the above situations, to compare various
pieces of evidence with conflicting statements of other records purporting to be fact;
o create family group and neighborhood reconstruction, for personal family history, medical,
cultural and historical studies across many disciplines.

- The language of this section further specifies that the requestor must present legal
authorization to request the birth certificate without specifying what the basis of legal
authorization is, suggesting that individual rights would have to be adjudicated, creating a
myriad of class action suits or test cases before the unintended consequences would be
recognized.

- This section then further discriminates against individual rights by leaving to regulations
minimum standards for issuance of a birth certificate to specific family members, their
authorized representatives, and others who demonstrate that the certificate is needed for the
protection of the requestor's personal or property rights. - when such rights vary across and
between states.

- Further difficulties in this section arise with an incredible catch-22 of suggesting that the
third party verifications of requestor identity that are currently failing in electronic Identity
Theft (in spiraling credit card and electronic transaction fraud statistics) should next be
employed for electronic birth certificate requests, thus creating, rather than reducing
opportunities, for birth certificate fraud which is now anecdotal, particularly as compared to the
escalation of electronic fraud and lack of effective security measures against electronic hackers
of all kinds:
o to meet the requirements of this section, for applications by electronic means, through the
mail or by phone or fax, a State shall employ third party verification, or equivalent
verification, of the identity of the requestor.

Next, Section 3063 (d) OTHER REQUIREMENTS proposes to create a militaristic security environment
in every town clerk and Vital Records office with requirements that much more closely resemble a
nuclear power plant document repository (without regard to the glaring lack of proper preservation
and archival protections for the existing records), including but not limited to:
- building security standards
- restricted to entities with which the State has a binding privacy protection agreement
- security clearance requirements
- fraudulent document recognition training programs
- internal operating system standards
- central database that can provide interoperative data exchange with other States and with
Federal agencies
- ensure that birth and death records are matched
- implementation of electronic verification of vital events

Next, Section 3064. ESTABLISHMENT OF ELECTRONIC BIRTH AND DEATH REGISTRATION SYSTEMS, further
extends the goals of a futuristic system without addressing any of the underlying problems
mentioned above, and relegates the following report requirement to post-bill passage instead of
pre-bill analysis, such that the aforementioned issues would be exposed, examined, quantified and
actually
provide for realistic legislation initiatives:
- Submit to Congress, a report on whether there is a need for Federal laws to address penalties
for fraud and misuse of Vital Records and whether violations are sufficiently enforced.

Next, Section 3065. ELECTRONIC VERIFICATION OF VITAL EVENTS, further extends security checks to
allow for the electronic validation by state and federal agencies of paper certificates -
particularly to prevent the use of a deceased persons birth certificate. Anyone, who has been
told that their birth does not exist, or found someone elses credit information has been
provisionally or permanently confused with their own, will immediately relate to the potential
for being told that they have been marked as deceased or having to utilize Mark Twains famous
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated., as only humor could alleviate the kind of
distress, such errors provoke, particularly in the elderly and children where they most often
occur.

NOTE: While the genealogical community, in particular, would welcome a state of the art and
accurate system for matching birth and death records, millions of family history researchers have
intimate knowledge of the regularity of human errors in the original records, the history of Vital
Records laws and late registration procedures, the loss of records through disaster or neglect,
the promulgation of errors with electronic systems, the lack of proper records facilities, and
other handicaps that make it difficult for Vital Records offices to perform their current duties.

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUEST:

Please, read the entire Birth Certificate Chapter!

HR 10,
TITLE III--BORDER SECURITY AND TERRORIST TRAVEL
Subtitle A--Immigration Reform in the National Interest
Subtitle B--Identity Management Security
CHAPTER 2--IMPROVED SECURITY FOR BIRTH CERTIFICATES

included in http://home.comcast.net/~massgencouncil/MGCHR10Alert.pdf ;

find out how your Congressman voted at http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2004/roll523.xml ;

forward this information to other concerned citizens ;

and contact both your Congressman and Senators.

To find your Representative and Senator contact information, go to
www.house.gov/writerep
and http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

HR10 has been passed in the House of Representatives.

S2845, National Intelligence Reform Act passed the Senate and is awaiting consolidation with HR10.

Visit http://thomas.loc.gov/ for the full text of HR 10 and S2845 as well as progress reports. The
Joint Committee consolidation reported goal is to be done within the next two weeks a fast track
election period initiative.

HR 10, Chapter 2 needs to be excised from this legislation!

The MGC Board of Directors is composed of elected officers and delegates from the following member
organizations:
American-French Genealogical Society
Allen County Public Library of Fort Wayne, Indiana
Billerica Friends of Genealogy
Central Massachusetts Genealogical Society
Descendants of Whaling Masters
Essex Society of Genealogists
Friends of the Silvio O. Conte Archives
Genealogical Roundtable
Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston
Massachusetts Society of Genealogists
Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants
The Greater Boston Chapter of Association of Professional Genealogists
The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution
The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS)
Plymouth County Genealogists
TIARA (The Irish Ancestral Research Association )
Waltham Historical Society

OFFICERS
President: Bernard J. Couming
Vice-President: Daphnah Sage
Treasurer: Peter Viles
Secretary: Sandra Gambone
DIRECTORS
Archives: Ann Dzindolet
Civil Records: Shirley Barnes
Asst. Civil Records: John S. Gracey
Newsletter: Mary Ellen Grogan
Asst. Newsletter Editors: Georgie Hallock, Christine Sweet-Hart,
John Thompson
Programs: Sharon Sergeant
Publicity: Bobby Lyman
Ways & Means: Sheila FitzPatrick
Webmaster: Bob Stone

Massachusetts Genealogical Council Website: http://www.MassGenCouncil.org




=====
Sharon Sergeant
Ancestors and Ephemera
http://GenealogyFair.com
Bring Your Ancestors Home!

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