An Immunization Tracking System in CO

Colorado Homeschoolers Fear New State Database Threatens Freedom

Homeschool activists in Colorado knew they had reason to be wary of the new majority in the state legislature, but they also were disappointed by one of their allies this spring when Gov. Bill Owens (R) signed a bill changing the state's immunization tracking system.

In the 2004 elections, several state lawmakers who had demonstrated support for the homeschool agenda were replaced by less-supportive officials. Familiar legislation that had been opposed--and previously defeated--by the homeschool community progressed this year through the House and Senate.

On April 29, Owens signed into law Senate Bill 87, which allows Colorado's health department to create a statewide database of immunization records and to contact parents directly when their children are due or overdue for inoculations.

Treon Goossen, a spokeswoman for Concerned Parents of Colorado--a grassroots group that lobbied against S.B. 87--said the homeschool community's opposition focused on privacy issues. While some homeschool families choose not to get certain inoculations for medical or religious reasons, she said immunization itself was not the primary objection..

This article goes on to give examples of misuse in CO already.

This spring, a laptop computer containing sensitive medical and personal information on 1,600 children was stolen from a state health department employee's car. Even more disturbing, Goossen said, was the fact that an autism study on the computer's hard drive contained information obtained without any of the parents' consent.

Surely not! Surely there wouldn't be information obtained, might one say...illegally... without parents' consent?!?

And CO has a new age governor. Fusionist is new to me, but I thought libertarian was minimal government, so what do I know? "It gets to my fusionist view of balancing libertarian values with what's in the interest of the community good," he said.
Tracking, tracking, tracking. The computer age has definitely spawned an excited bunch of bureaucrats who love databases of citizens and tracking. We should be paying lots of attention to that.