Next up: Irate privacy activists, upset at the practice of implanting ID chips into pets to identify them if lost, sue vets to stop the practice, citing Fluffy's "right to be let alone" and complaining that, Revelations' "Mark of the Beast" is now being taken literally... -Declan --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37589-2002May5.html National Zoo Cites Privacy Concerns in Its Refusal to Release Animal's By James V. Grimaldi Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, May 6, 2002; Page E12 Thousands of people have peered in on the National Zoo's PandaCam to see Tian Tian and Mei Xiang cavorting. They have surfed to the zoo Web site's ElephantCam to watch the most intimate moments between Shanti and the pachyderm's newborn calf. And they have tuned into the Naked Mole-Rat Cam to follow the subterranean rodent's tubular meanderings. But don't ask to see their medical records. You won't get them. The Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo has taken the position that viewing animal medical records would violate the animal's right to privacy and be an intrusion into the zookeeper-animal relationship. The notion that animals have a right to privacy is, from a legal standpoint, odd, because courts have long held that they don't. This all comes by way of a request for said information from Washington Post staff writer D'Vera Cohn, who recently asked the the National Zoo for animal medical records and necropsy and pathology reports from one of Washington's most renowned institutions after the death of Ryma, a beloved giraffe. The reply came in an e-mail letter from Zoo Director Lucy Spelman. The answer was no, The Post cannot see animal medical records, only "detailed summaries prepared by the individual generating those records or reports." The reason: Releasing medical records would violate the animals' privacy rights. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sign this pro-therapeutic cloning petition: http://www.franklinsociety.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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