EMERGENCY ??? AMATEUR RADIO NEEDS YOUR HELP NOW!

[Chip Fetrow]

While I agree with Rob that the initial message seems to be a knee  
jerk reaction, I am not convinced we need or even should allow  
encrypted communications in the ham bands.

Let's look at emergency medical communications for the Marine Corps  
Marathon, as an example.  If I am running the marathon and go down at  
mile 25, I really don't care what is said about me via ham radio.   
What could it be?  Name, condition, maybe the medications I am  
taking?  I don't care.  Get me on an IV and load me in the bus.

As I read HIPAA, and I have several times, it is basically in place to  
prevent medical information from being used to discriminate against  
the patient.  As an example, an employer may not want to hire an  
overweight diabetic who "cured" his diabetes by losing weight.  The  
potential employer may not want to hire that person.  To another  
extreme, an employer may not wish to hire someone who is HIV positive.

I cannot imagine what information that would go over the air at the  
MCM that would or could be a problem.

Hams have been called out to provide communications when hospital PBXs  
have failed.  Now, that COULD be an issue.  Using ham radio to say,  
"Ms. Nora Jones has this and needs that" could be an issue.  However,  
just changing this to "the female in Bay 3 in the ER has this and  
needs that" cures that problem, but it might require additional safety  
checks.  Using a patient number cures all problems.

One thing does really concern me though.  It does appear that those  
private, digitally encrypted messages might take place between non- 
licensees.  That would be bad.

--chip

On Jun 26, 2013, at 1:00 PM, tacos-request at amrad.org wrote:

> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 11:42:11 -0400
> From: Rob Seastrom <rs at seastrom.com>
> To: Tom Azlin W7SUA <tom at w7sua.org>
> Cc: tacos at amrad.org
> Subject: Re: EMERGENCY ??? AMATEUR RADIO NEEDS YOUR HELP NOW!
>
> I wonder if the author (K6BP) actually read the request for rulemaking
> or if this is just a knee-jerk response.
>
> All the request seems to be asking for is an explicit call-out in
> 97.113 to allow encrypted communication for things that need to be
> encrypted due to other laws (e.g. HIPAA) or data that seems
> discretionarily sensitive, during a bona fide emergency or training
> for the same.
>
> During a bona fide emergency, I would not hesitate to move encrypted
> traffic and offer the affirmative defense of 97.403 if anyone called
> me on it.  Of course, the value of such communications is
> substantially diminished if there's not training and/or coordination
> on protocols, procedures, etc.
>
> I am not a lawyer nor have I read the full text of HIPAA, but it seems
> to me that there is a huge gaping hole in that law if there is not a
> cutout for exigent circumstances.  Tom's comments about the MCM
> suggest a better way of dealing with this (fixing the law) than
> allowing encrypted communications under certain circumstances.
>
> I suppose one could characterize my feelings about this as "neutral".
> There is no doubt a better way to fix this problem, but I think the
> proposed modification to Part 97 is minimally harmful and certainly
> not deserving of the histrionics op cit.
>
> Perhaps I'll massage these comments gently and submit.
>
> -r