• The Iowa Department of Human Services has announced that child support payments will now be delivered electronically. In announcing the change, Director Kevin Concannon stated that electronic delivery eliminates the problem of lost and stolen checks, ends the annoyance of check-cashing fees, and ensures that custodial parents receive their money in a more timely fashion. The change is also expected to save the state an estimated $420,000 per year. A few other states are implementing a similar method on a pilot basis, but Iowa is the first state to deliver all child-support payments by direct deposit or debit cards. Parents who use the debit card get one free withdrawal per month from any U.S. Bank ATM or Visa network bank teller. There is no charge for customers who want cash back at stores with debit swipe machines.
• Trinity Medical Center has received re-designation as an Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) facility, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH). The re-designation signifies that the Trinity West Campus Trauma Center is equipped with appropriately trained personnel and resources to meet the needs of children. Of the hospitals in Illinois, 55 percent have elected to participate in the Emergency Medical Services for Children certification process. Ensuring that facilities are appropriately prepared for a child is an essential step in achieving improved pediatric outcomes. In 1998, the Illinois Department of Public Health began recognizing the pediatric emergency preparedness of hospitals through its EMSC Facility Recognition process.
• A bipartisan bill is being filed in the Iowa legislature that would create a criminal penalty for the inappropriate use of a cell-phone camera in certain locations. Cell phones with hidden cameras are increasingly being bought and used in Iowa. The bill is sponsored by Representative Kevin McCarthy (D-Des Moines) and Representative Jim Van Fossen (R-Davenport), both leaders on the House Public Safety Committee. The bill would create a criminal penalty of a simple misdemeanor for the use of a cell-phone camera in any place where a person could potentially be nude or partially nude during the normal course of conduct. This would include gym locker rooms, dressing rooms, and restrooms. Under the bill, cities would be able to pass an ordinance consistent with state law and retain any fine money. Sioux City, for example, has recently passed an ordinance similar to this bill. Under the bill, the fine is $100. No fiscal impact to the state is expected with this bill.
• Geneseo Endowment for Educational Excellence (GEEE) received a $1,000 grant from the GIFT (Geneseo Is for Tomorrow) Foundation. GEEE funds special projects beyond normal school-district activities to enhance educational opportunities and experiences for area young people. The goal of the GIFT Foundation is to enhance the quality of life in the Geneseo area. Organized in 2003 as a community foundation, GIFT provides donors with service tailored to their charitable wishes. It also provides additional tax advantages and fewer restrictions than private foundations, allowing more money to be channeled toward its intended purpose.
• In an effort to raise funds for patient services and discourage the deluge of verbal harassment and intimidation that regularly takes place outside the Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa (PPGI) Quad Cities clinic, PPGI has launched the Pledge-a-Picket campaign. This campaign will allow the women served by PPGI to directly benefit from the regular pro-life activity that takes place outside of the Quad Cities center. Supporters will pledge a pre-determined amount of money for each protestor that pickets the center between January 15 and April 15. For more information, contact Lori Mariner, regional educator and outreach coordinator, at (563)449-1005 extension 4 or (lmariner@ppgi.org).
• Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) reports the United States Visitor & Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) has been launched at 115 airports and 14 seaports in the United States. The program, which draws on the resources of more than 20 existing information systems and databases, compares fingerprints and digital photographs of foreign nationals entering the country with biometric, biographical, and travel data to determine whether the visitor should be allowed into the United States. US-VISIT, which is scheduled to be implemented at all ports of entry by the end of 2005, has spurred international resentment and prompted a judge in Brazil to order the retaliatory fingerprinting and photographing of U.S. citizens traveling to that country. US-VISIT's deployment comes just a month after EPIC analyzed the program's possible uses in a "friend of the court" brief submitted in Hiibel v. Nevada, a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court will determine whether an individual may refuse to identify himself to police when there is no legal basis for an arrest. The brief identified US-VISIT as a system that might be used by law enforcement to engage in public surveillance. The Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the case on March 22. For more information on US-VISIT, see this EPIC page: (http://www.epic.org/privacy/us-visit/default.html).
• A study published by the U.S. Army War College has blasted the Iraq invasion as "an unnecessary ... unrealistic ... preventive war of choice" that wasted precious defense resources, diverted efforts away from fighting al-Qaeda, and left the U.S. more vulnerable. The 62-page report was written by Dr. Jeffrey Record, a leading national-security and defense expert who serves as a visiting research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College. Dr. Record is author of six books on military strategy and related issues. The Army War College is the Army's premiere academic institution. The Iraq war, Dr. Record charges, "was a strategic error of the first order because it ignored critical differences between [Afghanistan and Iraq] in character, threat level, and susceptibility to U.S. deterrence and military action." To see for yourself, look at "Bounding the Global War on Terrorism" at (http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/2003/bounding/bounding.htm).
• Trinity Medical Center has received re-designation as an Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) facility, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH). The re-designation signifies that the Trinity West Campus Trauma Center is equipped with appropriately trained personnel and resources to meet the needs of children. Of the hospitals in Illinois, 55 percent have elected to participate in the Emergency Medical Services for Children certification process. Ensuring that facilities are appropriately prepared for a child is an essential step in achieving improved pediatric outcomes. In 1998, the Illinois Department of Public Health began recognizing the pediatric emergency preparedness of hospitals through its EMSC Facility Recognition process.
• A bipartisan bill is being filed in the Iowa legislature that would create a criminal penalty for the inappropriate use of a cell-phone camera in certain locations. Cell phones with hidden cameras are increasingly being bought and used in Iowa. The bill is sponsored by Representative Kevin McCarthy (D-Des Moines) and Representative Jim Van Fossen (R-Davenport), both leaders on the House Public Safety Committee. The bill would create a criminal penalty of a simple misdemeanor for the use of a cell-phone camera in any place where a person could potentially be nude or partially nude during the normal course of conduct. This would include gym locker rooms, dressing rooms, and restrooms. Under the bill, cities would be able to pass an ordinance consistent with state law and retain any fine money. Sioux City, for example, has recently passed an ordinance similar to this bill. Under the bill, the fine is $100. No fiscal impact to the state is expected with this bill.
• Geneseo Endowment for Educational Excellence (GEEE) received a $1,000 grant from the GIFT (Geneseo Is for Tomorrow) Foundation. GEEE funds special projects beyond normal school-district activities to enhance educational opportunities and experiences for area young people. The goal of the GIFT Foundation is to enhance the quality of life in the Geneseo area. Organized in 2003 as a community foundation, GIFT provides donors with service tailored to their charitable wishes. It also provides additional tax advantages and fewer restrictions than private foundations, allowing more money to be channeled toward its intended purpose.
• In an effort to raise funds for patient services and discourage the deluge of verbal harassment and intimidation that regularly takes place outside the Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa (PPGI) Quad Cities clinic, PPGI has launched the Pledge-a-Picket campaign. This campaign will allow the women served by PPGI to directly benefit from the regular pro-life activity that takes place outside of the Quad Cities center. Supporters will pledge a pre-determined amount of money for each protestor that pickets the center between January 15 and April 15. For more information, contact Lori Mariner, regional educator and outreach coordinator, at (563)449-1005 extension 4 or (lmariner@ppgi.org).
• Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) reports the United States Visitor & Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) has been launched at 115 airports and 14 seaports in the United States. The program, which draws on the resources of more than 20 existing information systems and databases, compares fingerprints and digital photographs of foreign nationals entering the country with biometric, biographical, and travel data to determine whether the visitor should be allowed into the United States. US-VISIT, which is scheduled to be implemented at all ports of entry by the end of 2005, has spurred international resentment and prompted a judge in Brazil to order the retaliatory fingerprinting and photographing of U.S. citizens traveling to that country. US-VISIT's deployment comes just a month after EPIC analyzed the program's possible uses in a "friend of the court" brief submitted in Hiibel v. Nevada, a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court will determine whether an individual may refuse to identify himself to police when there is no legal basis for an arrest. The brief identified US-VISIT as a system that might be used by law enforcement to engage in public surveillance. The Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the case on March 22. For more information on US-VISIT, see this EPIC page: (http://www.epic.org/privacy/us-visit/default.html).
• A study published by the U.S. Army War College has blasted the Iraq invasion as "an unnecessary ... unrealistic ... preventive war of choice" that wasted precious defense resources, diverted efforts away from fighting al-Qaeda, and left the U.S. more vulnerable. The 62-page report was written by Dr. Jeffrey Record, a leading national-security and defense expert who serves as a visiting research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College. Dr. Record is author of six books on military strategy and related issues. The Army War College is the Army's premiere academic institution. The Iraq war, Dr. Record charges, "was a strategic error of the first order because it ignored critical differences between [Afghanistan and Iraq] in character, threat level, and susceptibility to U.S. deterrence and military action." To see for yourself, look at "Bounding the Global War on Terrorism" at (http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/2003/bounding/bounding.htm).
