In 1986, The Electronic Communications Privacy Act updated federal wiretapping law in an effort to protect the Fourth Amendment rights of cell phone users.

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But using it in the life-insurance application process would "raise questions" about whether the data would be subject to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, says Rebecca Kuehn of the Federal Trade Commission's division of privacy and identity protection.

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Three federal laws -- the Privacy Protection Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Cable Communication Provider Act -- overlap and contradict one another in protecting Internet users' identities and personal information.

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The federal government mandates that hospitals keep patient privacy sacred under the 1996 Health Information and Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. But doctors and hospitals are bound by law in some cities and states to report every gun-violence incident.

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The form, he said, ensures that he's in compliance with the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, commonly referred to as HIPAA, designed to protect the privacy of health information.

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The questions of how and when an agency may exempt itself from the Privacy Act are not only central to this case, but also have divided the federal courts of appeals into two camps, a circuit split that could be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court should Shearson petition successfully for her case to be heard.

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According to the Electronic Freedom Foundation, social networks are being used by federal investigators, and last week the privacy organization released a 38-page PDF training course (obtained through the Federal Freedom of Information Act) that the EFF said was used for conducting investigations via social networks.

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Instead, the judge said, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which sets forth basic privacy protections in non-credit reporting situations, is the relevant federal law and it does allow states to enact more stringent privacy controls.

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