The title lays out the problem: “Why parents help their children lie to Facebook about age: Unintended consequences of the ‘Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act’.” It’s by Danah Boyd, Eszter Hargittai, Jason Schultz, and John Palfrey and appears in First Monday, a peer-reviewed Internet journal from the University of Illinois-Chicago.

The study reports the results of a survey of 1,007 U.S. parents, age 26 and over, who have children between 10 and 14, and who do not work in the software industry. The survey found that 55 percent of those children had Facebook accounts by age 12.

This is in violation of Facebook’s COPPA-inspired Terms of Service, which prohibit anyone under age 13 from creating an account. COPPA makes it illegal for Web publishers to knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under age 13. But that’s not what today’s kids want, I wrote in September:

“By effectively closing the social Web to preteens, COPPA has had the unintended consequence instead of simply encouraging kids to break the rules of the websites and services they wish to use – and by extension flouting the law’s purpose.”

The survey confirms that not only are children violating the spirit of COPPA by lying to register for online social networks, it suggests that the majority of children might be breaking the spirit of the law.

As I wrote before, what’s the point of keeping this element of a law that so many people are consciously breaking?

Remember, it’s the parents who are reporting their children’s Facebook activity in this survey, so presumably there might be some children who’ve registered for Facebook on the sly, too. The study survey not only found that the parents were aware of their children’s Facebook accounts, in the majority of cases they actually helped their children set up the accounts.

Nearly four out of five parents surveys said that there were situations where they would allow their children to create an account on an online service, knowing that their children were younger that the service’s age limit. Here’s the breakdown of why they would, according to the survey: (Respondents could select multiple reasons.)

Yes, for educational or school related purposes – 54%
Yes, but only under supervision – 50%
Yes, to communicate other family members – 48%
Yes, to communicate with me – 47%
Yes, to communicate with friends – 22%
Yes, because their classmates use the service – 9%

Only 22 percent of parents said that they would never knowingly allow their children to register for an online service in violation of the site’s age rules, according to the survey.

The data suggests that parents want to remain a strong influence, if not the focus, of their children’s online social network, with half the parents willing to approve their children’s participation under supervision and a near-majority wanting their children on Facebook in order to communicate with them and to enable the children to communicate with other family members.

The study’s authors suggested that parents aren’t seeing COPPA-inspired terms of service as legal requirements, but as suggestions – ones that can be overruled by their own parental authority. COPPA actually tried to give parents that authority, but the offline verification procedures that the law allowed are so burdensome for online publishers to support that most of them have decided simply not to allow registrations from kids under 13.

But those restrictions are there. And when parents allow their children to break those rules, they are, unfortunately, showing their children that it’s okay to break the rules of a community in order to get something (such as access) from that community. Ultimately, that’s not the healthy way to engage that a law such as COPPA should be encouraging.

COPPA does some great things for kids, helping to keep the Internet from becoming a commercial free-for-all, where Big Business hunts kids’ money and data freely. But why should children be the only ones to have their personal information and identity so well shielded by default?

The authors agree. They write:

“Our data suggest that … relying on age–based models is producing unintended consequences that undermine COPPA’s goals. In response, we propose that policy–makers shift away from privacy regulation models that are based on age or other demographic categories and, instead, develop universal privacy protections for online users.”

That ought to be the issue. Let’s ditch the parts of COPPA that parents don’t want – and don’t abide by – in favor of regulations that can better protect adults as well as kids from having their personal information and identities treated and traded as a business assets without their consent.

Kids want to engage. So do their parents. And parents want a role in helping teach their children how to engage socially online. Let’s let them do this – legally.

The United States Federal Trade Commission is seeking public comment on amendments to its rule implementing the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act [COPPA]. While, as a website publisher and a parent, I’d love to see some changes to COPPA, the FTC’s proposals don’t come close to level of reform this law needs.

If you’re not connected with the legal side of your news website, here’s a reminder about what COPPA is, from the FTC:

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) requires that operators of websites or online services directed to children under 13, or those that have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information from children under 13, obtain verifiable consent from parents before collecting, using, or disclosing such information from children. The FTC’s Rule implementing the COPPA statute became effective in 2000.

Under FTC’s current rules for COPPA, website publishers must get offline consent from a parent before collecting any personal identification information from a visitor under age 13. Getting offline consent, such as a written or faxed letter, then merging it with an online record, has proven to be such a hassle that most websites now simple bar registration to anyone under age 13. That’s been the policy at my websites ever since COPPA went into effect, and it’s the policy at major social media sites such as Facebook.

The proposed amendments to the FTC’s COPPA rule are intended to make obtaining parental consent easier. But some of the FTC’s proposed “solutions” – including a live videoconference with a parent – won’t convince any website publishers to open registration to preteens. Like the old requirements, they’re just too labor-intensive for the highly automated world of online publishing.

As a parent, I understand the intention behind COPPA. Many parents don’t want their kids wandering the Internet unsupervised. But by effectively closing the social Web to preteens, COPPA has had the unintended consequence instead of simply encouraging kids to break the rules of the websites and services they wish to use – and by extension flouting the law’s purpose.

Back in 1998, when COPPA was passed by Congress, online communication wasn’t an essential part of daily life for most people. Over the past 13 years, though, we’ve raised a digital generation. Text messaging, apps and Facebook chatting have supplanted passed notes and phone calls as the preferred means of communication for millions of young people. I can’t remember the last time my teen daughter used her cell phone to make an actual call. (She’s had the phone for over a year and has yet to set up voicemail. I don’t think she even knows she could do that.) My son loves making movies, and talked me into creating a YouTube channel and Facebook fan page on my accounts so he could share his videos, to get around the fact that he couldn’t do so legally himself. Most kids wouldn’t bother with that step. They’d just pretend to be over 13 and set up the accounts themselves – leaving them without the data-tracking protections that COPPA’s designed to provide kids of their age.

Digital communication doesn’t just happen at age 13. Kids are itching to connect online as soon as they get their hands on a connected device. And with tablets such as the iPad enabling toddlers to function online, COPPA’s age limit is a full decade too late for some kids.

And that is helping to make COPPA the most-violated law since the speed limit and the drinking age.

FTC can change its rules as it wants. But if COPPA continues to encourage publishers to close digital connectivity to preteens, today’s digital generation will continue to lie about their ages to get around that legal roadblock. And that digital generation’s first lesson in digital literacy will continue to be: To connect with the world around you, you first must break the rules and flout the law.

That bothers me, not just as a parent, but as a citizen. Keeping laws on the books that the majority of people routinely violate (or laws that are rarely or inconsistently enforced) robs the law – as an institution – of its credibility. I don’t believe that we collectively should make a policy that encourages our children to break rules and ignore the law in order to participate fully in their society. If we want to protect preteens’ identity online – and I believe that we should – our laws should focus on that, instead of creating parental consent procedures so burdensome that they force publishers into the impossible task of trying to keep kids offline.

We might want to pretend that we can control children, but the fact remains that kids are their own beings. Short of requiring retina scans to log online (oh, heavens, I shouldn’t even suggest that in jest), we can’t firewall preteens from the Internet. So let’s quit pretending that we can, or even, should.

The FTC can’t fix COPPA on its own. We need Congress to step in and revise the law. Perhaps we should prohibit publishers and developers from referencing minors with their real names. Or, even better, we could prohibit direct unsolicited marketing to any minor, too – building on COPPA’s data protection and anti-tracking measures. But I’d rather see the FTC start a discussion on a new effort to help kids engage online in a positive manner than limiting the discussion to patching this broken aspect of COPPA.

The report blames the shrinking of the newsroom for many of the problems facing journalism. The FCC study showed that newspapers and TV news networks across the nation have halved the staff they had in the 1980s. And those reporters are now forced to produce in “the hamster wheel,” where reporters must rush to tell the news without time or resources to dig deeper. According to the FCC, reporters “have less time to discover the stories lurking in the shadows or to unearth the information that powerful institutions want to conceal.”

One of the recommendations made by the FCC is a state-based version of C-SPAN. This STATE-SPAN would provide wall-to-wall coverage of local government and allow the public to hear the debates and see the votes coming from their state capitols. Although this would increase access, it remains to be seen if the public is interested in this. For STATE-SPAN, who would explain why a state or local legislative action matters? Veteran journalists know that most major decisions are made behind the scenes, long before an issue comes before a council or legislature.

The other big question is who would fund this venture? The cable television industry funds C-SPAN as a public service, but who could step up to provide such access in all fifty states?

Instead of beginning a risky venture like STATE-SPAN or allowing government to intervene in the journalism business, the FCC should look at new journalism initiatives that are covering local and state government effectively. Many of these organizations are nonprofit organizations operating solely online but breaking news in the mainstream media.

Online, nonprofit journalism organizations are filling a void that traditional news media no longer can. Although news organization startups are increasing, many of these nonprofits have been around for decades and are focusing on local stories. Some of the nonprofit journalism organizations serve as watchdogs for government, Wall Street and the media itself. Some serve as explanatory journalists, who have the space and time to elucidate the complex details of issues that newspapers and television cannot. But regardless of their mission, they are providing a desperately needed service to the American people.

As further proof of the strength in online journalism organizations, numerous straight-shooting, frustrated journalists are leaving traditional newsrooms and joining these online newsrooms. These organizations provide journalists the opportunity to investigate and reemerge as the news beat reporters of yesteryear. In the last year alone, Howard Kurtz, Peter Goodman, Jim VandeHei, and Richard Johnson have voluntarily exited the legacy media to join the online news arena.

The FCC is correct on many of the points made in their report. Journalism is struggling. State and local news will disappear unless more news organizations step up and begin covering that beat. We hope more organizations hear the urgent calling of this FCC report and begin producing state and local news content that will keep voters informed.

Jason Stverak is the President of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, which provides investigative reporters and non-profit organizations at the state and local level with training, expertise, and technical support. For more information on the Franklin Center please visit www.FranklinCenterHQ.org. The Franklin Center has two national news websites. To check out the investigative news site please visit Watchdog.org. To get the latest state capitol news please visit StateHouseNewsOnline.com.

But let’s not dismiss too quickly the federal government’s potential role in promoting good news coverage. Here are 10 steps that the US government *could* take that would significantly help entrepreneurs trying expand the news coverage of their local communities. And none of them involve direct subsidies or payments to the news industry.

1. Protect Net Neutrality

The Internet has nearly eliminated the barriers to entry for start-up publishers, enabling the explosion of new information sources across the Internet. If we need better sources of local information, the solution is not to allow telecom companies to extract tolls and demand payments from publishers to allow access from readers. That will merely reduce the number of voices available to consumers while further enriching telcos. Corporate media was cutting local news coverage before the Internet. Silencing websites won’t bring back that coverage. It will only reduce the possibility of finding replacements.

2. Expand broadband coverage

The smaller the market, the harder it becomes for a local publication to earn the income it needs to operate as a viable business. The digital divide makes small communities even smaller. Universal access to broadband would make every household part of its local digital marketplace, expanding opportunities for publishers and helping increase the possibility that a professional, responsible news publication in that community could be a financial success. The government can help expand broadband coverage not by caving to the demands of telecos (who are holding broadband expansion hostage to kill net neutrality, for example), but by laying its own fiber lines, establishing public WiFi networks, and by demanding more from companies bidding for broadcast spectrum.

3. Digitize public records and put them online in open formats

You might have noticed that we have millions of un- and underemployed workers in America today, many with digital skills. We also have decades of public records that remain available only in printed form, or in archaic electronic formats. Why not create a WPA-style computer workforce to digitize the nation’s public records and to publish them online, in open formats? Not only would this effort put many thousands of Americans to work, it would create a repository of more easily retrievable public information, allowing citizens (and reporters) easier access to our government.

4. Pass a national shield law, with explicit protection for online publishers

The First Amendment belongs to everyone, not just to print and broadcast reporters. Unfortunately, the shield laws that provide legislative support to the First Amendment vary from state to state, and some courts are unwilling to apply their protections to anyone other than old-school print and broadcast reporters. A federal shield law, with an explicit protection for online publishers, could help create a more hospitable legal environment for start-up news publishers.

5. Regulate transaction fees

Like many retailers, I lose a chunk of every payment made by my customers who use debit and credit cards. While it’s reasonable to expect to pay a bit for the convenience of these forms of payment, given the small number of megabanks that now control the credit card industry, we need government oversight to keep fees reasonable. Congress is taking steps to help this happen, which will reduce operating costs for all small businesses, including start-up news publishers.

6. Revisit COPPA

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act sounds like a worthy piece of legislation – no online service can collect personal information from someone under age 13 without that the explicit consent of that child’s parent or guardian (and an email or Web form consent doesn’t count). In practice today, however this act is violated so often as to make the drinking age look like a widely respected law. And it’s not the publishers undermining the law. It’s the kids. Many online community publishers spend way too much time finding and deleting user accounts from kids who lied about their age to register on a website. Creating digital media has become a normal part of life for kids under 13. It’s time to revisit this law and create a new solution that protects kids, parents and publishers. The law should mean something. When this many people violate it, the law is reduced to charade and farce.

7. Ditch the FTC’s “blogger endorsement” rule

This attempt to force truth in advertising is a confusing mess and its inconsistent enforcement has become a joke. If payola disclosure’s important, let Congress pass a law mandating it for everyone – bloggers, newspaper reporters, celebrities and anyone else who publishes. But good online publishers shouldn’t have to worry themselves with jumping through legal hoops that less considerate people get away with ignoring.

8. Model zoning reform

Continuing on the topic of widely ignored laws, zoning laws in many communities make running a business from your home (even a remotely hosted website) illegal. With telecommunity becoming more popular, the lines dividing home from work are becoming more blurred. While zoning remains a local issue, the federal government could encourage local communities to revisit their zoning regulations to encourage the development of online businesses. The first step would be to eliminate restrictions against running from one’s home office a business that employs no one from outside the family on site.

9. Remove payroll tax cap and reduce rate

My last two recommendations would help create a more viable environment for all job creation, not just in online news. Too many digital entrepreneurs are caught by surprise their first year, when they’re hit with the bill for the “self employment tax” – the share of Medicare and Social Security taxes typically paid by employers. When you’re self-employed, you’re on the hook for that share, as well as your regular share as an “employee.”

These so-called payroll taxes are regressive, as they are charged only on the first $106,800 of income. Eliminating the cap would raise additional money to fund these programs, potentially allowing an overall reduction in the payroll tax rate. That would reduce the self-employment tax, making digital entrepreneurship more attraction to journalists thinking about starting up, just trying to make a middle-class income for themselves and their family.

10. National health care

Even more than payroll taxes, the biggest non-income expense for many start-up businesses is health care. I personally know many journalists who’ve stuck with unsatisfying newsroom jobs rather than starting out on their own because of the health benefits. Ever-increasing health insurance premiums effectively serve as a private industry “tax” on job creation in the United States. A national health care plan that divorces health insurance from employment would encourage people and businesses to create jobs by eliminating health insurance as a direct expense of creating (or maintaining) a job. At the very least, opening Medicare to all who wanted to enroll and pay the premiums would create some much needed competition for companies such as Wellpoint, which enjoy near-monopolies in many communities on health policies for the self-employed.

Sunday, November 16, 2008
Stop abuse of power
VA Medical Center Condones Racism ,retaliation and abuse of Power.

Is racism , retaliation, and abuse of power tolerated in the VA Medical healthcare system? Do you think sweat shop mentality is dead. Do you think that cover up and conspiracy is reserved for elite political realms. Do you think that Al Capone style management has been mothballed to fiction. I used to think so.
Read my true story and you be the judge, this is happening NOW.
I am a Certified Nurse Practitioner, a veteran, African American and Hispanic ethnicity. I have been a Certified Nurse Practitioner for 7 plus years and for 4 years before that a critical care RN, and +10 years as a test engineer. I have never encountered a situation like the one I am currently experiencing in all these years. I worked for the VA in 2004 as a fee for service and never had a problem during that time.
In July of 2007, I accepted a position at Wilkes Barre VA Medical Center in Pennsylvania unaware of the impact that new management at the VA would have for me. I went to work enthusiastic and hopeful. I wanted to help my fellow veterans. I was sure my dedication, hard work ethic, and experience were compatible with the VA’s mission.
I went from employment acceptance to direct patient care with no orientation or formal training as is the norm. Aside from no formal training on the facilities new policies and procedures, I received no formal training on the facilities electronic medical record system. This system is called CPRS. It is the basis for medical records , ordering and reporting. The system includes patient notes, medication orders, and labs, everything you would find in a paper medical record. The system also encompasses a tracking method for provider/clinician work output. Of course this spyware system is tied into billing. This system, as with other large software systems, has its own special quirks and annoying glitches that can make learning to work the system, especially without formal training, challenging to say the least.
I worked with an earlier revision of the system 3 years earlier at the VA but unfortunately that was two and one half years earlier. I found significant differences with the present system from what I could recall of the prior earlier version . During my learning process I discovered a software glitch/flaw inherent to the CPRS system. This flaw would delete previously entered encounter information that a mid level clinician would enter, and hence any attempt at proper billing, if the patients primary care provider happened to see the same patient later that day. this of course would generate errors to the bean counters since revenue was lost because timely encounter information was lost and private insurance companies as well as medicare would not reimburse since the encounter information was not entered or re-entered in time. The lost revenue which I was told by those that used such information as a weapon against clinicians was in the millions of dollars and was sent to Texas (or so I was told) where it was tabulated. Repeatedly being harassed by administrative gnomes that loved to make me, as well as other clinicians re-enter encounter information that we swore we had already done gets to an individual. Especially when the gnomes would leer and tell you how you are costing the system so much money because of your inept practices. I began then to investigate and search out the few technically adept wizards at the VA , those who actually understood the way CPRS worked and who had access to check how data was being entered and by whom. I found a technician who actually was trained and formally educated as a programmer, but who was relegated to serve little more than clerks with some CPRS template training because of the incestuous and inherently inflexible way supervisory positions were granted at the VA medical center. This technician whom I will call OZ was able to search my patient database with me and discovered in minutes dozens of incidents wherein my encounter information was deleted after patients I had seen in appointments were then followed by their primary care providers. Imagine my surprise when OZ told me in a matter of fact way that this in fact was a known flaw in CPRS for over 5 years! Thats right 5 years known software glitch that he had years earlier told higher management about but which had been ignored because the system was such a good spy and could be used, despite the waste in taxpayer money as a weapon to punish any clinician that wound up on the wrong side of management. CPRS is then also an electronic assassin that can gather false data on a clinicians efficiency that can be unleashed in Lord of the rings type fashion against anyone deemed an enemy of mordo( management 5th floor and higher).
This is a fact that if any manager or politician not seduced by the dark side could investigate if they could break the spell of Mordo.
Of course I told Dr XX and Dr XY and Dr XYZ about what I discovered with the help of OZ, do you think they were happy, rather the looks and reaction I received was one reserved for he who would run through the Vatican screaming he had found the body of the Christ.
I was treated like an old testament leper, from that moment on officially on the outs.
As far as I am aware, the problem has still not been resolved. That means millions of your tax dollars are being thrown away.
Soon after this time my immediate supervisor Dr XY began displaying odd behavior. There were mood swings from jovial and friendly to ill temper. This was punctuated by personal attacks directed at me. These attacks were at first rare but then became the norm. They included foul language and racial slurs.
August 2007; Dr XY proclaimed he was God and I was his slave. This proclamation became more frequent and animated. Dr XY would point his finger skyward as he called himself “the god”.
September 2007; Dr XY started referring to himself as “The Master” and I was his slave.
These attacks and proclamations at this time were only directed at me. I would repeatedly and patiently explain to Dr XY, his behavior was inappropriate and I found it offensive. Dr XY would respond by telling me I was dismissed from his presence.
October 2007; Dr XY began to occasionally utter the above proclamations in the vicinity of others.
Dr XY began to feel more emboldened. He repeatedly stated names of other high profiled doctorsXX, and XYZ in management at the VA remarking these individuals would do anything for him. Dr XY’s assumption of omnipotence was becoming apparent to other employees such as ETFS, ETSM, EKGJB. As the months progressed the verbal attacks on me became more vile. They went from you sh*t, f*ck you, and lazy b*stard, to lazy sp*c bastard, and lazy black b*stard.
I was torn. I felt shame, anger, and disgust. Then Dr XY targeted me with a work schedule that would allow me a lunch break only once a week on Friday.
I went to another doctor whom I will call Dr XX requesting a transfer explaining my reasons and stating nothing more than Dr XY’s abusive behavior, in the hope that even a cursory informal investigation would expose and correct such abuse. Unfortunately Dr XX being a close friend of Dr XY told him everything I had said in confidence.
Predictably Dr XY’s attacks increased. Now emboldened by support from Dr XX, in front of other employees Dr XY would proclaim of my proposed request for transfer. He would laugh at those times and say he would ensure I was transferred to the nursing home which according to Dr XY was no place any clinician wanted to be.
As punishment Dr XY then increased my work load even more. He would purposely schedule me to be in 2 places at the same time to make it look as if I was always late. I then found a legitimate way, despite all the obstacles Dr X put in front of me, to accomplish all my work in a timely fashion. I need to note at this point prior to accomplishing this, nurses and other support staff had to work overtime to cover my clinic time slot. Thank Dr XY for needlessly spending more of your tax dollars. When Dr XY discovered I was doing all my work and leaving on time he was furious.
Now it was about January or February 2008. In addition to the foul language and racial slurs Dr XY began telling me I had a big belly and began laughing at my religious medals saying they were “crazy”.
Around March 2008 Dr XY proclamations began to spill out and involve other employees, stating he was a god and their master, along with outbursts of cursing at them, why not he got away with it in my case.
One day I was in my office with a colleague discussing some test results. Dr XY came in and asked me a question which I answered. Dr XY then looked over at my guitar and asked me if I would like for him to break that guitar over my legs. I was too angry to respond and just looked at him. Dr XY repeated the threat. I just shook my head. Dr XY smirked and strutted out of my office. The clinician who witnessed this threat told me that she felt uncomfortable by Dr XY’s threat, I will call the clinician PASE, pase was so disturbed upon hearing Dr XY’s threat that pase filed an affadavit with the federal police on campus. NO charges were filed against Dr XY. No apology was or has been received. VA management aware of the debacle and did nothing to discipline him despite publically referring to itself as a no tolerance for violence facility, that apparently only applies to those not so well connected.
I once again complained regarding Dr XY’s behavior. In fact I was told by Dr XX in front of the local Union President that a fact finding investigation would be launched. Reprisals were immediate. I had weekend work that was scheduled and booked 13 weeks in advance and it was taken away from me with significant loss of wages.
I was removed from patient care for more than six months months despite the facilities medical bylaws that state this cannot be done to any clinician for more than thiry days.
Please note I was the one punished for daring to complain about their darling doctor.
Please note that in tune with a management that thrives on abuse of power what the bastards did was to cut off all my access to the CPRS software that way I effectively had all clinical priviledges removed without being officially reported as such my the federal governments healthcare priviledge reporting system called Vet pro. In this way the VA management could report truthfully to any lazy bastard politician that only superficially looked into my reported loss of priviledges and state it was not true since the VET pro software reported I still had privledges. I hope the reader will recall that earlier I had stated that CPRS sytem of electronic record is the only system the clinician can use to function as a clinician. If a clinician is cutoff from CPRS that clinician cannot function as a clinician. I believe the reader can get a sense that herein is a management system that is adept at using the electronic medium to manipulate truth to a machiavellian degree.
I was made to sit at a desk, enter appointments, and stuff envelopes.
I contacted the EEO office, The IG office, and my Congressman. I also provided copies of my schedules. More Reprisals Within about 2 weeks from my filing complaints, I was informed that a Nursing Board of Review was directed at me. Dr XX, Dr XY, and now the influential Dr.XYZ, as well as BossXU were seeking my dismissal.
April 2008 a sham, I was allowed to review documents in fact finding. I would have to defend and explain them at a nursing standards board, I was told by the smirking Mr. MacV of labor relations. Yet I could not get any information of the alleged events in the testimony against me, in fact everything except the charges was blocked to me only dated (many months in past) was given , Everything was blacked out. I was told by Mr.MacV this is the way Title 38 Hearings are done, I was also warned, in the presense of the local union vice president, that if I tried to investigate any of the cases I would be terminated immediately. Remember I had my CPRS privledges suspended.
My Union Representative was the local vice president, he was aware of his lack of experience with this type of hearing and requested a 1 day delay to obtain to guidance of the local president to aid me. This request was flatly denied by Mr. MacV.
Within 30 days or so with no information on my part as to specifics the hearing took place, surprisingly they ruled in my favor. It seemed that the haughty Dr.XX, Dr. XY, Dr. XYZ, and BossXU had tried to frighten me into leaving and had not counted on me fighting back. In fact to my surprise the board appeared openly dumbfounded regarding the whimsical nature of complaints and accusations against me. They were also puzzled why no fact finding investigation was ever made regarding my complaints. Keep in mind I was told by Dr.XX in the presence of the local Union President that an investigation would be launched. I was told privately by one of the board members that she was disgusted by the sham of a hearing that was held against me.
Management still has not investigated any of my charges and has not questioned even one witness whose name I provided. I made an official EEO complaint, and at an EEO informal hearing held May 2008, I told Dr. XYZ and Mr.HR Ged that a nursing Standards hearing resulted in no charge of misconduct on my part, I pleaded in front of EEO rep and all at the meeting to please launch the investigation that had been earlier promised by Dr.XX .
No investigation was forthcoming. Retaliation did continue.
I still suffer retaliation simply because I dared to complain about a hostile and degrading work environment and because instead of running I stood up for the most basic of human rights that of dignity.
I have been placed into primary care despite the fact my entire career has been in sub specialty of cardiology, without benefit of shadowing a primary care practitioner, and despite management acknowledging I had no formal training in their CPRS system or their tera term system(one used for communication). I have been given the clinic of Dr.FF who left this job after only 1 year because of the unrealistic workload.
I am given 10-14 pt load plus 15-24 daily patient callbacks, plus walk in patients plus 15-24 daily medication renewals, plus expected electronic communication between staff. In short I have been set up to FAIL.
I have used every avenue at my disposal to resolve my situation. I have sent letters to Congressman Kanjorski, Senator Spectre, regional director Mr. Mooreland, and VA system Director Dr. Peake. Nobody has as yet effectively come to my assistance, most just send a letter to the same people I have complaints against, cute huh, thereby effectively fanning the retaliation that to this day continues. This leads me to believe that Wilkes Barre VA Medical Center and the VA medical system by being complicit condones racism , retaliation, and abuse of power, and has far reaching tentacles.
If one does not address bad policy and bad behavior, in my view you are condoning it. Apparently it seems some of our politicians also condone the same by virtue of lack of action.
There has been much talk about improving the health care provided to our veterans. I say you cannot fix the veteran until you fix the system. How can a health care provider focus on the patient 100% (as they deserve), when working in a hostile and toxic environment where racism, retaliation and abuse of power is tolerated.
Take it a step further. Why not fix a well known computer system glitch that costs the VA health system millions of dollars. Those are our tax dollars. As a tax paying citizen I demand more efficient accounting of my money. Can you imagine how much more we could do for our veterans with efficiently used resources.
It comes down to one simple fact. I am a veteran. I want to provide quality, respectful health care to my fellow veterans. I want to do this in a professional and therapeutic environment. The current Wilkes Barre VA Medical Center and VA medical system by extension does not facilitate the most basic rights of human dignity, and respect how can they then be entrusted with the care of any veteran.
Therefore I am taking my concerns to the public for I have confidence that the American people will not tolerate a system they have bought and paid for that is characterized by injustice, and an AL Capone style retaliatory of management that seeks to turn back the clock to the sweat shop days of intolerance.

Sincerly
In Chains
Tonyzzz7
Tonyzzz7@msn.com