Confidential Information

An article in yesterday's editions contained incorrect information about how former Internal Revenue Service clerk Janeen McClean left her job last year. McClean, who pleaded guilty to a federal charge of disclosing confidential information, resigned from the IRS, according to IRS officials.The Sun regrets the error.A former Internal Revenue Service clerk pleaded guilty yesterday to browsing through confidential tax information on IRS computers and disclosing it to a friend who was curious about the salaries of co-workers.

Smelkinson Sysco Food Services, a Jessup food service company, filed a $6.01 million lawsuit yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore against a competitor and six former employees, alleging unfair competition and theft of secret trade information.The suit alleges that Alliant Foodservice Inc., a Deerfield, Ill.-based company that has a local office within two miles of Smelkinson's Jessup operation, has systematically attempted since November 1995 to use Smelkinson's confidential information and trade secrets, hire its employees and pirate its customers.

The case against a U.S. attorney's office secretary who sold information from case files grew out of a broad investigation that has resulted in a flurry of drug indictments and the arrests of four suspects in a 1978 murder, according to court files and federal agents.Patricia Ann Wheeler pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of bribery in federal court in Baltimore, admitting that she sold confidential information from criminal case files to an informant working for the FBI.The informant was helping FBI agents investigate a drug trafficking ring in Maryland.

Baltimore Bancorp director G. Gregory Russell gave former Maryland Port Director Michael P. Angelos a $50,000 check that was used to purchase the bank's stock prior to the announced sale of the company, board members have been told.The check -- written by Mr. Russell and endorsed by Mr. Angelos -- is apparently a key part of a federal investigation into whether confidential information from a bank insider influenced the trading of stock.The transaction was revealed to the Baltimore-based company's board at a meeting in November 1994, shortly after lawyers for the company showed Chairman Edwin F. Hale Sr. the canceled check, according to several directors interviewed by The Sun.A copy of the check was obtained by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission during its probe into whether certain stock trades made before the $346 million sale of Baltimore Bancorp to New Jersey-based First Fidelity Bancorp.

WASHINGTON -- The Whitewater notes of a former Clinton administration lawyer, released by the White House yesterday after a week-long showdown with Congress, revealed no hard evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons but several potentially embarrassing or damaging references that are open to interpretation.The handwritten notes of former White House lawyer William Kennedy, taken at a November 1993 meeting to discuss Whitewater with other White House lawyers and the Clintons' new private attorney, show the administration dissecting the complex controversy.

Two dozen people were indicted yesterday after state investigators uncovered allegations of insurance company marketers lying, forging signatures and bribing state workers to enroll poor people in health maintenance organizations.Five of those indicted pleaded guilty to charges including bribery and Medicaid fraud before Judge Clifton J. Gordy in Baltimore Circuit Court. The indictments came after a four-month investigation by the office of State Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. into marketing practices of HMOs, which increasingly see taking care of poor people as big business.

NEW YORK -- In one of the largest cases of insider trading on record, the government charged yesterday that 17 people used confidential information about AT&T Corp.'s plans to acquire four companies in 1988-1993 to realize $2.6 million in illegal profits.The indictments come at a time when charges of insider trading violations, the province of Wall Street deal-makers and speculators in the mid-1980s, are being brought with rising frequency against current or former corporate employees and advisers who have learned of pending mergers or acquisitions.

WASHINGTON -- The Social Security Administration, in a step that experts warn could imperil its computer system and confidential information it holds on virtually every resident of the United States, is considering giving computer access to outsiders for the first time.In what one agency analyst called "a giant step," outside organizations that file applications for disability claimants would get limited access to send them directly into the computer. And, in a separate step, they might also be allowed to seek limited information from the computer.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A private intelligence network with ties to an American Jewish group and South Africa is under investigation for illegally tapping into police sources and collecting information on the political activities of more than 12,000 people, authorities say.As part of the investigation, San Francisco authorities say they have confiscated files containing personal information on a wide range of political activists, ethnic advocates, writers and...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A private intelligence network with ties to an American Jewish group and South Africa is under investigation for illegally tapping into police sources and collecting information on the political activities of more than 12,000 people, authorities say.As part of the investigation, San Francisco authorities say they have confiscated files containing personal information on a wide range of political activists, ethnic advocates, writers and...

WASHINGTON -- First it was the Department of Veterans Affairs. Then, the Internal Revenue Service. Now, the National Institutes of Health is the latest federal agency that failed to encrypt laptop computers containing sensitive private information. The recent theft of a laptop that had medical test results for 2,500 patients in an NIH heart imaging study shows that the government is still not guarding private information, despite new rules, privacy specialists say. "The issue isn't so much with the policy; it's with the policy being followed in practice," said Joy Pritts, a Georgetown University researcher who specializes in health care privacy.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Private Investigating, by Steven Kerry Brown (Alpha, 384 pages, $18.95 softcover) Brown, an experienced professional PI, urges that this book really could guide the reader into a career. But its greatest charm -- and I suspect its main utility -- is as a truly entertaining, briskly presented, rundown on how the business is conducted. Or at least how it is done by Brown. One of the 24 topical chapters: "Moving Surveillance: How best to perform one-man and two-man moving surveillances, anticipating your subject's next move, communication between units, and dealing with stoplights."

Aggregate information Information collected by a Web site that is not personally identifiable to you. Includes demographic data, domain names, Internet provider addresses and Web site traffic. Bot A program or Web site that searches several sites for information for the user. Short for "robot," also known as a shopping agent, shopping bot or shopbot. Cookies A block of text placed on your computer's hard drive by a Web site you've visited. It is used to identify you the next time you access the site.

The future of Owings Mills lies somewhere in a stack of five thick binders that the public isn't allowed to see. This week, the state Mass Transit Administration began to review proposals from developers interested in creating a traditional downtown around the Metro station in one of Baltimore County's fastest-growing communities. The applicants vying to be named master developer of the Owings Mills Town Center project include a partnership led by Cordish Co. of Baltimore; LCOR Inc. of Berwyn, Pa.; and Otis Warren/John Akridge Cos. of Baltimore.

Two Columbia Council members charged with evaluating the job performance of the Columbia Association president have been accused in censure motions of violating a confidentiality agreement, and their ability to perform a "fair" review next month is being questioned. In a draft of the motions, council members Pearl Atkinson-Stewart and Kirk Halpin are accused of providing the "general public" with information from a closed-door meeting in February at which some of Columbia Association President Deborah O. McCarty's travel expenses were reviewed.

Still divided over the performance and commitment of Columbia Association President Deborah O. McCarty, the Columbia Council is expected to consider a motion this week to censure one or more of its members for disclosing "confidential" information. The agenda for Thursday night's meeting does not specify who might be censured, but, in recent weeks, council members Pearl Atkinson-Stewart and Kirk Halpin have raised questions publicly about McCarty's leadership. It is unclear what confidential information is thought to have been disclosed, or what weight -- if any -- a censure would carry.

An article in yesterday's editions contained incorrect information about how former Internal Revenue Service clerk Janeen McClean left her job last year. McClean, who pleaded guilty to a federal charge of disclosing confidential information, resigned from the IRS, according to IRS officials.The Sun regrets the error.A former Internal Revenue Service clerk pleaded guilty yesterday to browsing through confidential tax information on IRS computers and disclosing it to a friend who was curious about the salaries of co-workers.

Smelkinson Sysco Food Services, a Jessup food service company, filed a $6.01 million lawsuit yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore against a competitor and six former employees, alleging unfair competition and theft of secret trade information.The suit alleges that Alliant Foodservice Inc., a Deerfield, Ill.-based company that has a local office within two miles of Smelkinson's Jessup operation, has systematically attempted since November 1995 to use Smelkinson's confidential information and trade secrets, hire its employees and pirate its customers.

The case against a U.S. attorney's office secretary who sold information from case files grew out of a broad investigation that has resulted in a flurry of drug indictments and the arrests of four suspects in a 1978 murder, according to court files and federal agents.Patricia Ann Wheeler pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of bribery in federal court in Baltimore, admitting that she sold confidential information from criminal case files to an informant working for the FBI.The informant was helping FBI agents investigate a drug trafficking ring in Maryland.

WASHINGTON -- The Whitewater notes of a former Clinton administration lawyer, released by the White House yesterday after a week-long showdown with Congress, revealed no hard evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons but several potentially embarrassing or damaging references that are open to interpretation.The handwritten notes of former White House lawyer William Kennedy, taken at a November 1993 meeting to discuss Whitewater with other White House lawyers and the Clintons' new private attorney, show the administration dissecting the complex controversy.