St. Petersburg Times Online: Opinion

Editorials
Respect patient privacy
The health care industry should quit complaining and abide by new rules designed to protect patients against the unauthorized dissemination of their medical records.

Patient health should be primary
With its recent approval by a state House health committee, proposed legislation allowing for greater generic substitution of brand-name drugs is facing its best chance of passage in years. The bill would likely drive down the high cost of prescription drugs and is supportable on that basis alone.

Choose a U.S. attorney wisely
John Ashcroft's confirmation as attorney general clears the way for the next round of important presidential appointments -- the 93 U.S. attorneys. These prosecutors are the chief federal law enforcement officers in their regions, responsible for fighting an array of crimes, from fraud and discrimination to drug-running, corruption and organized crime.

Letters
Lawmaker may come to regret arrogant words
Re: AARP told to back reform of Social Security, Feb. 15.

Perspective
Taking jobs, alienating customers
For weeks Americans have been told that the outsourcing of high-tech jobs is good for our economy. So said Greg Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in a recent report signed by President Bush. So, too, writes Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in articles praising the rise of call centers in India used for everything from making airline reservations and reading medical X-ray films to providing tech support for American computer firms.

Philip Gailey: Democrats fall off campaign finance reform wagon
Well, what do you know. Soft money is back, and it's making hypocrites of all those Democrats who fervently championed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, not to mention those Republicans who objected to the law's restrictions on issue advocacy.

Bill Maxwell: Who is for the farm worker?
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is touting legislation to improve the lives of Florida's 300,000-plus farm workers, who endure institutional and systemic injustices each day in our fields and groves and their personal lives.

Robyn E. Blumner: For some defendants, an American gulag
In Bernard Malamud's masterpiece The Fixer, inmate Yakov Bok was subjected to psychological torture in a Soviet gulag through the humiliations of constant shackling and repeated strip searches.