Then came 1999 — and a new federal government preoccupation with privacy. The general approach has been to create new federal limitations, not to replace state lim- itations, but to set a nationwide floor of privacy protection. Several states are now try- ing to outdo each other in cutting off access to information about their citizens. On the federal privacy front, there were three noteworthy developments in 1999. First, Congress considered, but did not pass, extremely broad and extremely stringent new limitations on the use of personally identifiable information related to health care. Several of the bills introduced in Congress by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and others.
