On Wednesday, this blog had an intraday record of the most likes. I had a humble 5 people liking my posts on that single day. The WordPress notification area said so. I don’t mind sharing such metrics since its fun looking at web statstics. I wanted to share this little tidbit!
I edited some of this post to make my thoughts more clear before post originally went out.
I am no fan of drugs that are legal by the Government and made by drug companies. I am no freak when it comes to drugs (as I am not a Christian scientist) but drugs can do a lot of bad. I believe the body was designed to be a “self healing”, self correcting and self fixing of keeping the human healthy. Yes, I do take meds when its really necessary, but most often I say away from them.
I also believe that some medicines (read: drugs) are not good when its proscribed by a doctor that is probably paid by the drug companies.
I reported a while back from an article in The Wall Street Journal, when GlaxoSmithKline was found guilty of criminal charges for promoting “off label uses” of their medicines. They were found guilty of enabling doctors that it was OK to use Paxil for teenagers when it was clearly not supposed to be used for those groups and having marketing people to whore Wellbutrion as a “happy, horny and skinny” pill, and even used celebs like Dr. Drew Pinksy to promote the same pill for uses not authorized by the Food & Drug Administration.
I have issues with medicines.
How I (and my mother) felt like idiots for believing what these “doctors” were suggesting. In 1999, in the midst of falling apart, and when I was told I had autism, and experienced that hell from the local middle school; I was under the influence of Paxil. The neurologist, which had no practical knowledge of autism, suggested the acting out was made up so I could get off the Paxil. Wow! A doctor to make such shallow comment like that? Just WOW! Well what was worse, I had severe hyperventilation and had some chest pains. It was until May of the following year, that my psychologist, ordered my mother to call the doctor to detox off the Paxil.
My mother never had never had much of a skepticism. She believed that these professionals knew what they were talking about. The World Wide Web was still in its infancy when it came to medical information. (I remember the websites being 600 wide pixels – that’s equivalent to a website for a mobile device today!) Also the thought of using a search engine back then was just as effective as using a physical phone book – it was revolutionary, but not really that innovative until Google really took off a few years later. The other thing was until about 2008 I said to myself “why didn’t I think to search doctors?” to dig on dirt to see if the doctor was legit or not.
I was on the following medications (excuse the spelling issues in advance):
*Ones I am on now
I might had been on others, and I can’t come up with them – one too many in my opinion
There shouldn’t be a surprise that some are being used as lab rats. The real and troubling concern is that these doctors are being seriously unethical. They are likely getting kickbacks from these horrendously managed and executed drug companies and doing this at the risk of young and innocent victims of society. My last psychiatrist had kept drawerful of samples, and would essentially make me think that he was a dealer for legal medications. It was just freaky and scary that doctors are allowed to do this. I have gone to many indie businesses, so there isn’t that many ethics policies they establish.
The last set of anti-depressants was Risperdal. The medication had made me balloon to 220 pounds by the end of 2008. Not only that, but my blood results started to get concerning, and for some f—d-up reason, it can cause hepatitis and not only that potential liver damage! Jeez, how can the drug companies push these meds with a straight face without laughing their assets off? (pun intended) So for the first time ever in my life, I had an ultrasound earlier that summer.
After dealing with 9 years of getting toxic treatment of such shitty medication, I asked to get off the drugs near the end of that year. My psychiatrist had bluntly asked me near that time after self-admitting that I was crying in my sleep, “Why were you crying? and “Well, should we look into another medication?” and it came off a little nasty too. I went through the detox process and at the same time a historic icestorm came through the northern New England, knocking out power in my area for a few days. I went to the local mall (which had power) and went and bought $200 worth of new clothes and jeans. I got one to two sizes up in case I ballooned even more, to only find out in less than one month after the detox, I lost 29 pounds instantly. I am now hovering around 180, though given my 5′ 4″ figure, technically I need to be around 160, but I am much better off than being at 220 again.
I understand that some kids need it but, these medications have long term effects if people aren’t aware. And “doctors” need to wake up and learn that medicine isn’t the answer to all problems. Better diet, better anxiety treatment, better exercise and better schooling and teachers can cut the anxiety by lets say 60% Medication for many cases only makes the problems even worse.
Its like I wished I was them.
Every disability, whether its mental, physical, deaf or blind, they have such higher social status and acceptance level, its all good.
…but My God, if you look like an odd ball, and you appear to be a loner and you have a developmental disability, its like living in real hell! The world is so sick and fucking perverted its not even funny!
I can’t imagine what they go through (though I don’t cry and feel bad) but I sure as hell cry and feel bad for myself because developmental disabilities is apparently “still new” to understand never mind barely getting to the general acceptance level.
I don’t want to be one of those people living by their label even if I come off as such. But it really hurts me that every other disability is accepted (read: GENERALLY) and someone like me with an autistic disorder is not being accepted and people like me are treated as a imitate object like the wallflower.
Hell, I don’t call myself or this blog “The Forgotten Autistic” for nothing. I am BEING FORGOTTEN in society!
Well according to the libertarian people, its wrong. They think that living with their parents is causing them to become welfare dependents over time.
On the Fox News Channel’s business block on Saturday, August 4th, an extreme anti-government commentator on Cashin’ In, went way over the top, by yet again playing the sexism card. Jonathan Hoeing (a real jerk if you asked me) went against the “young men” population by subliminally calling them losers by not saying it by name. This mans opinions should scare the hell out of you with his 6th grade maturity of freedom of doing whatever the hell he wants with total individual freedoms (with no responsibilities if freedom gets abused mind you.)
What really pisses me off is how they have gotten so stuck on Obamacare’s “stay on your parents plan till they are 26” Well most kids are in college till they are ether 24 or 26 if they are going on a 6 year college degree, assuming its a full time job too. The way the fiscal center of right commentators are acting is like someone with autism getting too stuck on one issue. Hideous.
The only reason why I am very angry against these people, is they because they are snobby rich people. I came from a similar town in this state and when you have these kinds of social economic enviornments, it makes people like
I found some videos on YouTube that should make you really sick to your stomach. I don’t think I need to explain much details (unless I should say some in case I have visually impaired viewers.)
This first video is the infamous documentary produced by Autism Speaks entitled Autism Every Day on WrongPlanet and they had actually beaten the crap out of this when it first circulated. Unfortunately, they caved in to receiving funding from Autism Speaks and now they have a tainted reputation, again that Asperger Syndrome is still not officially connected to autism.
The video starts with such deepening and deathly like music. The entire video focused on the negative, even near the end, when they basically faked their way of turning the negative into a positive experience. These Manhattanite women (you could even consider a few of these characters as Sex and the City-esque mothers – by telling their demeanor) because you know the rich are just like us – rigght – just ask the head of the New York Stock Exchange as I reported in April acting as the boy next door type. One of the mothers was frustrated since she can’t go out to have a coffee date with one of her girlfriends because her daughter is taking up much of her life.
The worst offender was when the mother halfway through the video said that she was contemplating suicide by driving off the G.W.B. with her autistic daughter. (The context is still in question since maybe she was referring to her struggles finding a kindergarten program for her, might had been a run off rant so to speak.) As she was saying such heavy statement, her daughter was walking in the room right as she said such strong statement.
These women have no idea that at least in New York State, they have “area agency” systems, and in other states they might even have a state agency for disabled people. In this entire video, no mention at all of any public or public/private programs as I had just mentioned, only the frustrations with the insurance companies and the debt they had entailed finding sources of revenue to make their kids somewhat happy.
So in that video, they had effectively made autism a third person, a Commander Data like humanoid and they can’t talk so therefore they are dumb.
The next YouTube video, makes you want to think twice about those A Walk for Autism that you get spammed by your ignorant liberal friends. The video shows how much the receive in these bake sale type of fundraisers, and how they just spend it on themselves! From the lavish digs on 7th Avenue, to the obscene salaries of this alleged non-profit entity, the chief officers and VPs making about nearly a half of a million dollars! Not to mention the excessive expenditures for advertising, facilities, and fixtures. The end of the clip states this statement: “Still feel like walking? Grab your dog and go to the park. It’s much more productive”
If you want to attempt to ether confront to Autism Speaks directly or even reply to your liberal friends’ spam invitation, don’t try to even tell them that Autism Speaks is a fraud! They won’t listen to you. They’ll treat you as if you are mute and dumb since that is Autism Speaks’ goal – to only let grown ups who don’t have autism (since they are afterall child-like – to them) and silence anyone who disagrees with them.
Geez, and I liked Bob Wright, who made a crippled business of one of the Big 3 network into a strong one before it got ruined by other GE mismanagers. But the Wrights does posses mismanagement skills. By running an alleged non-profit as a profit seeking entity and misleading the public.
If it was legal for me to punch people that have that blue puzzle pin, I would. Because they are arrogant and ignorant jerks.
*
Kevin Malley was almost 30, and he was starting to lose his hair. He went to his doctor to see if there was a way to keep from going bald, and his doctor prescribed Propecia.
“I looked young for my age, so I wanted to hold off my hair loss for a little bit,” Malley said. “I didn’t plan on taking Propecia for more than a year.”
Malley started taking the drug in May 2011, and by October he was completely impotent and had no sex drive whatsoever. His body changed, even his genitals shrank, and he slipped into a mental fog that he just couldn’t clear. His doctor told him the side effects would go away if he stopped taking the drug, so he did. But nothing changed.
ABC News, July 11th 2012
This is really sad how people believe that medicine will fix problems, when in fact its causing other significant issues. I’d suggest take this story with a grain of salt, especially at the end where ABC News’ Dan Harris said that Kevin Malley “lost his job, his fiance and he blames Propecia.”
This dateline is in my own back yard of my homestate of New Hampshire. Last week, elderly woman got fired from a convenience store. The fireble offense? A 20 year old man was attempting to use his Electronics Benefit Transfer or EBT card to pay for cigarettes. The use for EBT cards in New Hampshire is supposed to be prohibited for purchases of cigarettes, booze and other things that aren’t a need so to speak.
In her words, to the local press, Jackie Whiton told the Union Leader on June 28th:
“‘What happened was, a young man came in and wanted to buy cigarettes and I asked him for his ID and he handed me his EBT card. I told him he couldn’t them with the card and he said yes he could’ The following day, the foster mother of the man, who Whiton estimates to be about 20, came into the convenience store to complain. Whiton still refused to accept the EBT card for cigarettes so the woman went to her boss, she said”
She also said to the Union Leader this:
“The next day, I got a call from the home office and they said I have to sell to him and I said at 65 years old, I have do anything I don’t want to do. I said I would bow out gracefully and gave my two weeks’ notice. The next day, they fired me.”
However the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services told the same paper that EBT benefits can be used to purchase anything. Theoretically, these “benefits” is used for spending money since if others are receiving Social Security benefits. From what I know, the media has wrongfully made public benefits very glamorous, while many are in fixed incomes, with disabled people, and people with autism having a cap of $700 a month of revenue in order to receive benefits and for their adult services programs as well.
Now the man was kinda arrogant. The EBT card is not a valid ID. Now in the defense of the State, its their responsibility to say no or cancel purchases on ciggies or booze. Says Terry Smith, the head of the Division of Family Assistance: “if the state were to enact restrictions on how cash assistance is spent, DHHS would have to set up a costly infrastructure to monitor use, We’d need more staff and travel budgets”
Of course they have no budgets – just look at the whole Managed Care drama over the last year! Obviously various bureaucrats and pols have been on the attack of ANY public assistance.
Now for Ms. Whiton, her stance is questionable both on legal and just plain wrong as a customer service perceptive. Yes, the question for ID is right on, but to deny it because the EBT card prohibits that, when in fact the DHHS said it’s ok – thats wrong part. (I am just being fair and honest.) She said to the Union Leader “I am not against EBT grocery cards. I am not. But a woman cant even buy toilet paper or tampons with those.”
Now Jackie Whiton has applauded by the feel-me-good-tough-love-excessively emotional conservatives and has made appearences on the Howie Carr Show, a column from Carr on this story and she appeared on the Fox News Channel and other outlets as well.
But this story hitting close in my home state, when the next legislative session starts this winter, I won’t be surprised to see legislation to not only limit funding for an agency that has had the bone cut, but more zero-government approaches of our ignorant legislatures to the New Hampshire General Court and the bureaucrats of the State of New Hampshire.
Glaxo was plead guilty in a criminal charges for misleading the government for various antidepressants. Now I find this funny, that they a) get criminally charged, b) they have to pay the Government about $1 billion for criminal fines, but yet no one goes into the slammer. Hey, Presidential Candidate Romney says “People are business”, does that ring true to Glaxo? Oh wait, they are a big business, Romney was referring to the small businesses!
In anyway, in Tuesday’s Marketplace section above the fold in The Wall Street Journal, GlaxoSmithKline had severely mislead the government of the the legal use of the drugs. They were, according to the Journal:
The Journal reports that the costliest health care fraud cases has been the biggest in many years. The U.S. Government had found the company guilty as “the company piling doctors with perks such as free spa treatments, Colorado ski trips, pheasant-hunting jaunts to Europe and Madonna concert tickets” that the Justice Department said
Quoting a paragraph from the Journal:
“At a news conference on Monday, and in documents posted online, the government said Glaxo spent six years – 1998 to 2003 [sic] – unlawfully promoting Paxil for patients under 18 when the drug wasn’t approved for non-adults. It said Glaxo helped prepare an article published in a medical journal in 2001 that falsely reported Paxil had proven effective at treating depression in children in a clinical trial when the trial showed no such thing.”
In reference to the other non-authorized purposes, the government accused that Glaxo had mis promoted Wellbutrin, “approved to solely to treat depression – for number of other reasons” such as another Viagra! The Journal quoted the government said “Glaxo sales representatives sometimes referred to Wellbutrin as ‘the happy, horny, skinny pill’ as to remind doctors of the unapproved uses.”
GlaxoSmithKline, PLC had to pay another $2 billion US dollars to to cover civil penalties such as misleading Medicaid (a US Government agency and program, hence the fines) that had mistakenly misauthroized the uses of the drugs. Additional fines included kickbacks to doctors to prescribe nine different drugs, according to the WSJ report.
In a side bar, the Journal quotes the “76-page complaint”.
Promoted Wellbutrion SR as an antidepressant, to treat obesity or sexual disorders. Example: Hired a PR firm and paid [TV’s] Dr. Drew Pinsky to ‘build buzz’ for off-label uses”
Marketed Paxil, an antidepressant, as safe for children, despite trials that raised concerns about suicide. Example: Give free samples to child psychiatrists”
I added the boldface
Glaxo had agreed to go into a Five Step Program, seriously they need to do a “five year ‘corporate integrity agreement’ in which it pledges to specific behavior” to change various policies such as compensation plans and show their financial statements post-charges and show where the money is going.
Takeaway
What drives me nuts, is why can’t the US Government not criminally prosecute “people” instead of just the company? Why did no one blow the whistle or get “cooperating witnesses” or get “bagmen” to ambush them. (Being from Boston, I know about mobs inside and out – as an outsider of course!) Why didn’t the government go after the doctors who were involved in favors and didn’t get them prosecuted? This is really a sick problem, and the free market has been abused, and I really wished this was taken even to a higher level of criminal prosecution, really in the sense of throwing people into federal prison for life! People had actually died because of the suicide (a lawsuit occurred with another company I can’t remember the details.)
This is what we call “corporate prostitution” – pay someone to suck up another in order to lure what the doctor wants. What’s worse is how a doctor’s office is whored with those tissue boxes, pens and oh I can’t say any more, because that’s going to be another post alone!
In all seriousness, this is a huge issue. Paxil was given to many children, and many with PDD, HFA, Asperger’s in the late 90s and they became very unstable, more unstable than not being on Paxil. I can disclose that I am currently on Welburtrion, but the first drug I had been on was Paxil. I’ll tell you that I had countless suicide attempts, and many aggressive episodes, that I suffered with hyperventilation, especially during restraints (the ignorant/arrogant staff thought because I was fighting with them during the restraint holds, was the cause. ) Not only those cause issues, but the worst case was that I had no eyebrows or eyelashes as I had plucked them out -for a crazy reason, this medicine gave me some weird side-effects.
Part of my middle school years were tainted because I was on drugs that now were – actually illegal to take. I also was dealing with a neurologist who didn’t understand PDD type of children, but yet I went through various doctors, and my psychologist (who is a prominent voice of autism, but doesn’t posses a M.D. background) was actually giving my mother and I recommendations for various medicines, that she shouldn’t been suggesting to use period given her PhD background.
Medicine isn’t the total solution, and I will explain more later, but this is a good starting point to discuss the drug industry, the “doctors” and the smartasses of the autism community.
If you interested in this story, this appeared in Tuesday’s Marketplace section of The Wall Street Journal. I quoted directly from the print edition with my dictating skills which is good to do with reading and typing skills.
F You WordPress! I am tired of the stupid constant changes and I am tired of this RETARDED infinite scrolling! I hate JAVA, I hate HTML5 and I hate using cloud services where the users have zero rights of a say (or give us options.) Its not that I don’t like change, its not that I don’t want to live in the past. Its about reteaching a human brain how to do things. Also this will probably cause a bandwidth spike because of this alleged “faster” and “better” bullshit. There is a problem about these clowns who don’t think about causes and effects or have any skills of making things more effective, and not for the closed minded reasons of speed and code bloat.
I have noticed my browser is A LOT slower thanks to this change that I feel like I have been raped. I also hate that fucking “bug” on the bottom of MY BLOG! (it looks like an annoying graphic from a TV network hence the bug reference.)
I really wished your stupid comments would still be open – but I probably would had been blocked thanks to your communist anti-1st Amendment agenda that many of you silicon valley jerks are!
This change SUCKS! I wish you people could understand my anger towards you progressive jerks that you can be.
Living with autism and dealing with its own baggage is a problem in itself. Living with autism (and being diagnosed and told unwillingly) and coming from a low middle class family in a community of upper middle class that not only looks down at lower income people, but they also look down at the disabled people also. You’d think if you buy the bullshit from the C.D.C. with the current autism statistics that you’d think there would be some decency of the population to accept and engage with autistic people. Oh, wait the Millenials (returing from yesterdays rant) accepts (ill)legal ailens, and homosexuals, and other liberal groups – but when it comes to an American that is suffering with autism – fuggedaboutit.
Sticking to the topic: if you thought the Medicaid/Medicare outsourcing and other health and human services in its entirety were cut was bad- think again. This following story will make you want to throw your crappy Linux boxes to our elected hack politicians houses.
I came across a damning law that that some colleague in the IT services industry had brought this up to me. Thanks to our jackass beancounters that are mostly NH-styled Republicans (please use a search engine because its MUCH different than the National party’s definition), they proposed a law during our budget session last winter. The Governor signed it into law last month. In the text of the law it says the following.
I. The general court finds that:
(a) The cost of obtaining software for the state’s computer systems has become a significant expense to the state;
(b) The personnel costs of maintaining the software on the state’s computers has also become a significant expense to the state;
Is this a joke? I am no friend of Microsoft and Apple is no angel, but why in the fuck is our state insisting to go into the CHEAP route? What about that lameass Ci$co solution the IT agency demanded across the entire NH State government with Video, IP Telephony and unreliable computer networking services that Cisco is known to be, however they did go forward with a huge RFP during that same time. How could they get away of doing with that? Cisco don’t use lot of “open source” software (and dare I say open-standards) and do you think our state would be better off using such amateur phone systems like the Asterisk – which is such a resource hog that would waste of tax paying dollars in other ways! Why did the General Court, their finance committee or the Executive Council stop that Request for Proposal at that same time?
Microsoft has some solutions that can’t be replicated, IBM/Lotus has some solutions that can’t be replicated and others have solutions that can’t be replicated. Why? Because most Open Source Solutions are done by fat ass virgins that go to Occupy Wall Street, that whine and bitch about how greedy Microsoft and say their software sucks but YET they NEVER used the software firsthand to begin with! They never had a real job in the private sector and they don’t know how a real office works, if they do its just the “idea” of it. They don’t give a shit about how to make an OSS version of SharePoint, because they don’t care. The way they email with Mozilla’s Thunderbird is fine even when it can’t do read receipts, no flagging importance of emails, cannot edit and resend messages and can’t multi message exports or hell even Rich Text message composing before it bitches at you asking (or saying how liberal geeky virgins hate anything that looks pretty or anything thats GUI FWIW) some email clients can’t open HTML messages, do you want to send it text only or both?
I think this would be a policy coming from the Institution in Durham for their internal IT systems, because UNH loves technical diversity. They have an international known division called the Interoperability Lab (IOL) I don’t know if one of those Solons that sponsored this law came from UNH and knew about the IOL. Alls I know as a state citizen is they do interoperability tests and do an annual hackathon-like interoperable networks. Regardless– part of this movement of “Cut, cut, cut” is obviously is coming from in part of the 70 year old Solons that think technology in this modern society is way too much money. I agree with them in the sense of them pissing dollars like Ci$co equipment, but others I am outraged by this law.Some of our politicians of certain beliefs think our state should be living in 1776. Our constitution had built in protection such as society would evolve and modernize, but of course the government still doesn’t have the right to tell private citizens what to do.
Again this law only applies to the New Hampshire State agencies of a headcount of 12,000 plus people mostly coming from the conservative city of Concord.This law is attempting for our Solons to essentially kill our small government to begin with compared to the neighboring states! I don’t think that is a PC thing to say! Yes, I think there are some lard-sized agencies (like UNH for an example) but for the love of gawd – this is a lame law.
If recent history is proven right, Massachusetts attempted to do this, with their Hack CIO attempting to push the large government of well over 100,000 layabout employees to use OpenOffice and after the failures of incompatibility, the pulled the plug on the attempt. (And that CIO was IIRC a Romney appointment – I could be wrong – it was in 2005 when they attempted to do such thing.)
Now I am starting to get sick of the perverted politics coming from all sides. Don’t forget that the bureaucrats up in Concord, are in fact – very conservative – I’d bet 80% of them (except for the ones that work for DHHS, DOE and other like agencies that look out for ASD directly) are the ones to really be suspicious of. So in every other agency and up in the State House – they don’t like the ideal of liberalism in the sense of welcoming all groups on their property. I remember the security officer a few years ago of a hack State Trooper was scared of me taking pictures of decommissioned computer terminals in the halls of the State House. He probably thought I was a creepy jewish spy or something like that. Oh and I had to deal with a hack because I had inadvertently dialed 9-1-1 for some unknown reason because all calls are state handled a few years ago- <sarcasm>that was a lot of fun dealing with a cold hearted bureaucrat from Merrimack County that probably never knew about autism.<\sarcasm>
So this anger I have isn’t against a popular party of our state – its everyone involved in our horrible leadership. This law is just plain absurd. If I was a politician of our General Court, I’d create a Vendor Avoidance List or VAL(in one of my fictional governments in my Lego world, this was done.) It be a black list for the government to not do business with vendors that are deemed bad for the government’s plants property or its own employees. I’d make such policy or law to prohibit the State to buy the shit from San Jose from that Chamber$ douche.
The text of the law it in its entirely due to protection of public domain copyright laws
AN ACT relative to the use of open source software and open data formats by state agencies and relative to the adoption of a statewide information policy regarding open government data standards.
Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:
5:1 Statement of Purpose and Findings.
I. The general court finds that:
(a) The cost of obtaining software for the state’s computer systems has become a significant expense to the state;
(b) The personnel costs of maintaining the software on the state’s computers has also become a significant expense to the state;
(c) It is necessary for the functioning of the state that computer data owned by the state be permanently available to the state throughout its useful life;
(d) To guarantee the succession and permanence of public data, it is necessary that the state’s accessibility to that data be independent of the goodwill of the state’s computer system suppliers and the conditions imposed by these suppliers;
(e) It is in the public interest to ensure interoperability of computer systems through the use of software and products that promote open, platform-neutral standards;
(f) It is also in the public interest that the state be free, to the greatest extent possible, of conditions imposed by parties outside the state’s control on how, and for how long, the state may use the software it has acquired; and
(g) It is not in the public interest and it is a violation of the fundamental right to privacy for the state to use software that, in addition to its stated function, also transmits data to, or allows control and modification of its systems by, parties outside of the state’s control.
II. The general court further finds that:
(a) The acquisition and widespread deployment of open source software can significantly reduce the state’s costs of obtaining and maintaining software;
(b) Open source software guarantees that its encoding of data is not tied to a single provider;
(c) Open source software enables interoperability through adherence to open, platform-neutral standards;
(d) Open source software contains no restrictions on how, or for how long, it may be used; and
(e) Since open source software fully discloses its internal operations, it can be audited, at any time and by anyone of the state’s choosing, for internal functions that are contrary to the public’s interests and rights.
III. Therefore, it is in the public interest that the state of New Hampshire consider using open source software in its public computing functions.
5:2 New Subdivision; Department of Information Technology; Open Standards. Amend RSA 21-R by inserting after section 9 the following new subdivision:21-R:10 Definitions. In this subdivision:
I. “Open source software” means software that guarantees the user:
(a) Unrestricted use of the software for any purpose;
(b) Unrestricted access to the respective source code;
(c) Exhaustive inspection of the working mechanisms of the software;
(d) Use of the internal mechanisms and arbitrary portions of the software, to adapt them to the needs of the user;
(e) Freedom to make and distribute copies of the software; and
(f) Modification of the software and freedom to distribute modifications of the new resulting software, under the same license as the original software.
II. “Open standards” means specifications for the encoding and transfer of computer data that:
(a) Is free for all to implement and use in perpetuity, with no royalty or fee;
(b) Has no restrictions on the use of data stored in the format;
(c) Has no restrictions on the creation of software that stores, transmits, receives, or accesses data codified in such way;
(d) Has a specification available for all to read, in a human-readable format, written in commonly accepted technical language;
(e) Is documented, so that anyone can write software that can read and interpret the complete semantics of any data file stored in the data format;
(f) If it allows extensions, ensures that all extensions of the data format used by the state are themselves documented and have the other characteristics of an open data format;
(g) Allows any file written in that format to be identified as adhering or not adhering to the format; and
(h) If it includes any use of encryption or other means of data obfuscation, provides that the encryption or obfuscation algorithms are usable in a royalty-free, nondiscriminatory manner in perpetuity, and are documented so that anyone in possession of the appropriate encryption key or keys or other data necessary to recover the original data is able to write software to access the data.
III. “Proprietary software” means software that does not fulfill all of the guarantees provided by open source software.
IV. “State agency” means any department, commission, board, institution, bureau, office, or other entity, by whatever name called, including the legislative branch of state government, established in the state constitution, statutes, or executive orders. The judicial branch of state government is explicitly exempted from this definition.
21-R:11 Use of Open Source Software by State Agencies.
I. For all software acquisitions, each state agency, in consultation with the department of information technology, shall:
(a) Consider whether proprietary or open source software offers the most cost effective software solution for the agency, based on consideration of all associated acquisition, support, maintenance, and training costs;
(b) Except as provided in subparagraphs (d) and (e), acquire software products primarily on a value-for-money basis, based on consideration of the cost factors as described in subparagraph (a);
(c) Provide a brief analysis of the purchase decision, including consideration of the cost factors in subparagraph (a), to the chief information officer;
(d) Avoid the acquisition of products that do not comply with open standards for interoperability or data storage; and
(e) Avoid the acquisition of products that are known to make unauthorized transfers of information to, or permit unauthorized control of or modification of a state agency’s computer.
II. All state procurement documents related to software acquisitions shall include language that requires adherence to this section.
21-R:12 Metrics; Inventory of Open Source Software Used by State Agencies. Each state agency shall maintain an inventory of all proprietary and open source software products used by the agency.
21-R:13 Use of Open Data Formats by State Agencies.
I. The commissioner shall assist state agencies in the purchase or creation of data processing devices or systems that comply with open standards for the accessing, storing, or transferring of data. The commissioner shall:
(a) Ensure that any new data standards which the state of New Hampshire defines and to which it owns all rights are open standards compliant.
(b) Use open standards unless specific project requirements preclude use of an open data format.
(c) Reexamine existing data stored in a restricted format to which the state of New Hampshire does not own the rights every 4 years to determine if the format has become open and, if not, whether an appropriate open standard exists.
(d) Make readily accessible, on the state website, documentation on open data formats used by the state of New Hampshire. When data in open format is made available through the state’s website, a link shall be provided to the corresponding data format documentation.
21-R:14 Statewide Information Policy on Open Government Data Standards.
I. The commissioner shall develop a statewide information policy based on the following principles of open government data. According to these principles, open data is data that is:
(a) Complete. All public data is made available, unless subject to valid privacy, security, or privilege limitations.
(b) Primary. Data is collected at the source, with the highest possible level of granularity, rather than in aggregate or modified forms.
(c) Timely. Data is made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data.
(d) Accessible. Data is available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes.
(e) Machine processable. Data is reasonably structured to allow automated processing.
(f) Nondiscriminatory. Data is available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.
(g) Nonproprietary. Data is available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control, with the exception of national or international published standards.
(h) License-free. Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark, or trade secret regulation. Reasonable privacy, security, and privilege restrictions may be allowed.
II. The information policy developed under paragraph I shall include a mechanism for adoption and review by each state agency. Each agency that adopts the policy shall designate a contact person responsible for oversight and implementation of open government data standards for that agency. The contact shall act as a liaison between the department, the implementing agency, and the public in matters related to open government data standards. The commissioner shall include the status of the development and implementation of the statewide information policy based on open government data standards in the quarterly report to the legislative oversight committee under RSA 21-R:9.
III. In developing the open data standards policy, the commissioner shall solicit information from the secretary of state relative to state archiving practices and the collection of data for historical purposes.
5:3 Department of Information Technology; Duties of Commissioner Regarding Acquisition of Information Systems. Amend RSA 21-R:4, I to read as follows:
I. Providing technical information technology consultation to all executive branch agencies and to any other agency that requests it, including technical adviceconsistent with the principles of open government data established in RSA 21-R:11 through RSA 21-R:14 during the development or acquisition of information systems.
5:4 Effective Date. This act shall take effect 60 days after its passage.
Approved: March 12, 2012
Effective Date: May 11, 2012″
From: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2012/HB0418.html